Birds of a Feather
by InsaneScriptist
Summary: When working for Gingotts lands you in a different world, a Veela has got to do what she has to do to survive. Still it is surprising to thrive after meeting the Whitebeard Pirates, or maybe not. Birds of a feather flock together after all. HP epilogue compliant. Written in 100 word prompt format.
1. Chapter 1

A/N; For the damn plot bunny that won't let me work on BV in peace. This is not the sole bunny either, but one of the shorter ones.

Beta'd by the lovely Umei no Mai who without this would have far worse grammar.

Summary: 'When working for Gingotts lands you in a different world, a Veela has got to do what she has to do to survive. Still it is surprising to thrive after meeting the Whitebeard Pirates, or maybe not. Birds of a feather flock together after all.'

Warning: Harry Potter epilogue compliant.

Birds of a Feather

* * *

1\. Beginnings

Working for Gringotts had improved her English most certainly. She still had an accent, as she likely always would when not speaking her native language. Finding Bill during the Triwizard and then later marrying her wizard and having children with him was a witch's dream come true. Her wizard was still handsome, more so for being so courageous. Scars such as those did not diminish him at all.

After all, he accepted her Veela-quirks so she didn't mind his psuedo-werewolf ones.

2\. Middles

The trouble with having the home to just themselves was that they had gotten used to having their children underfoot. Their various nieces and nephews would visit but those were short intervals of noise and inane daily chatter. The first year all of their children were gone they found themselves inexplicably longing for summer despite the daily chaos that was certain to happen with that many red heads in the same place visiting and bringing friends or significant others.

3\. Ends

After that first year where they found that sex couldn't replace the ache of missing their children, nor fill the emptiness of the house with just each other they looked towards work. Both were employed by Gringotts and between them could work in any part of the world that had a project or branch. This worked until their children had all graduated Hogwarts. Still, they had moved on and the two had found an acceptable rhythm for living their life, learning and working.

Fleur sometimes wondered if it had been like this for her own parents after both she and Gabrielle had flown the nest.

4\. Outside

Ruins, caves, concealed lovers hideaways, temples and tombs were found all over the world. Goblins didn't like to admit it but they relied on wizards for several things. They had to. It was written into the treaties, much to their displeasure. So the Goblin Nation could only deal with muggle world through wizard-kind except when it came to monetary matters which would fine them slightly. Still enough of a fee was placed on those exchanging muggle money for galleons to allow them to still make a profit.

This didn't mean much but Fleur while knowledgeable was not a qualified curse-breaker. She was hired to deal with clients and translate for clients who didn't speak the language of business to the degree that they'd negotiate with goblins without having the specifics explained in a language they understood better. Translating and negotiation was Fleur's job, even while out in the field. So her language skills were excellent, when negotiation or dealing with contracts.

This caused few complications since a few places covered in wards and such were known to react to any bit of active magic when she wanted to stay with her husband out in the field and they did have people without an allure to translate as needed; including her husband. This often turned her into a glorified fetch-and-carry girl, holding lanterns lit with matches bought from the muggle world. Languages had become a bit of a specialty for Fleur over the years, as it did not require curse-breaking qualifications but was still a vital skill for any curse-breaking expedition.

5\. Inside

There are numerous protocols in place to protect curse-breakers, goblins and others of the team. Breaking these often means death, or serious injury but to top it all off it will also lead to being instantly fired, which meant no pension for surviving family members to benefit from if the worst should happen and usually a lot of fines and the rightfully feared goblin justice for 'trespassing.' Still even following such protocols can sometimes cause issues such as what will happen if the temple had light sensitive traps.

Retrospectively, Fleur had to admire that kind of practical cunning.

6\. Hours

The temple had flung her to what she assumed was either a holding cell or inner sanctum. Considering the lack of bones she doubted the holding cell theory. It truly didn't hold water when she noticed the altar in the fringes of light. Bill would be frantic but she would wait for him. It is what protocol dictated.

7\. Days

After a period of what felt like days she finally set about to exploring the set of chambers, wand and lantern in hand. There was no natural light and thankfully no creatures. There was however a pool of still clear water, a room that was once a bed chamber or so she guessed and the altar. Just her luck to be shunted towards such cloistered quarters. She had looked for traps, tricks and other prepared surprises and found nothing.

She found no exit either. Not even a window.

8\. Weeks

There are some people out there with an astounding sense of time who could measure accurately to the minute or even second. Fleur was not one of them even if her Veela heritage should have her up with the sun. She slept, drank water conjured from her wand -the pool had been determined to have magic of a sort she couldn't identify- and then later from the pool. Hunger did not have a large effect on most magicals as they could use magic to sustain themselves for just a little longer.

What Fleur and Veela did have was an astute sense to know how those they had bonded with and those that they had brought into the world were no matter the distance. Her Bill was dead. She felt herself shatter.

Veela do not do well with grief, never mind how stressed she was already. There was a true risk of self-immolation. A trip on the rough stone floor brought on by weakness from hunger into the pool fixed such an issue, as the lantern burned brightly on the alter.

9\. Months

She woke on a beach, and knew then that something inexplicable except by magic had occurred. The sun was low on the water, but still not high enough to erase the stars from the sky. Having been around the world with her husband she had long since grown to know all of the night sky. This was not her sky. The second thing that occurred to her was that she had nothing on her at all. The third was that she now could get food even if water was uncertain.

Fleur was a Veela capable of using human magic, much like her mother and daughters. Being wandless was no handicap to catching the breathing mollusks, and skittering little crabs. Were Fleur more conscientious and not pressed to new limits she would have been more self-conscious of her state, but she not cared one jot that the food was put between her beak and not her lips. Hunger sated, the transformation reverted and clarity returned to her thoughts. She could see nothing on the island that said people lived there so all she could hope was that she could survive long enough, stay sane enough so that when people -if they even lived in this world- would rescue her and not an avian savage that would burn the world in her outrage.

10\. Years

Survival took a while for Fleur to get the hang of. Thankfully she had her avian form to fall back on when it came to guarding a tree she had claimed as her roost and to kill, skin and cook any beast that thought she was an easy meal. Skinning what appeared to be a small blue leopard with her talons was not an easy task, nor was fashioning clothing -she had to figure out a way to tan the skins and improvised with a large spiky turtle shell, wood chips and hot water. She slowly and then rapidly started expanding her range of tools, building an actual shelter in her tree and preparing rations for days when it wasn't wise to try and obtain more food. The small, spring fed creek had some clay that made for a poor attempt at pottery but was still functional enough for cooking purposes.

Her days were spent focused on survival, preparation for tomorrow, making her nest cozy, making tools and generally being too busy to think about her English home. Her nights, those she didn't collapse in exhaustion from the day's labors were spent in mourning for not only her husband but her family and her children. It was a pattern that could have lasted for years and if Fleur was honest -it may have.

The island was warm enough that a concept of 'winter' didn't exist. The only 'seasons' were Hot, Humid and Monsoon not, Spring, Summer, Autumn or Winter.

11\. Red

Veela are magical beings capable of flight. Fleur didn't fly away from her island because she had no idea of where she was to go. Even the birds on the island didn't fly away so she could follow them. So instead her avian form saw use in flying her to and from her roost, later nest and then home, killing animals and pests alike, and as a convenient way to start a fire and cook. Fleur had grown used to seeing her talons and beak be red from killing and when she found further inland that they wouldn't alone suffice she made weapons. Spears were handy and easily manufactured.

Red was now a welcome sign as it was a sign of her continued life.

12\. Orange

Fleur had never liked the color orange as a witch and liked it even less now. She had roosted instinctively so that the sun would wake her and then later she could never not rise with the sun. Orange was a color she loathed no matter how pretty the sun was on the water. The sun had scorched her fair -and far too human- skin mercilessly causing it to darken beyond mere vanity levels, had made her choke on the humidity as it raised the temperature to sweltering and was a merciless torment day after day.

13\. Yellow

Yellow was the color of the eyes of most of the beasts here -at least the predatory ones, even if they were otherwise wrongly colored. Tigers are either white or orange with black stripes. Not cerulean blue and creamy yellow with dark green stripes. Those first few frantic nights were spent high up in her tree and those yellow eyes circling her. Those eyes belonged to some pack-like lizards that she sent running with handfuls of fearful instinctive fire. Later she learned to kill them and cook them.

She took great pleasure in it.

14\. Green

Fleur adjusted to surviving on the island with an ease and pace that would have others in similar situations green with envy if they had the time and resources to spare a few moments to feel it. Fleur's time with the Gringotts exploration teams had subtly taught her how to survive in many environs even if she had to struggle without access to those spells. She had her Veela heritage to fall back on for a number of things people would struggle with.

At least visiting the beach after a good storm had passed had proved signs of intelligent inhabitants of the world since tools, trash and broken things washed up on occasion.

A lush green and almost tropical island was almost easy to adjust to after time in South America's rainforests. Having this knowledge augmented by her Veela heritage allowed Fleur to move past surviving and into thriving.

15\. Blue

Fleur hated orange, so it is no surprise that she favored blue fire. It was hotter and prettier and held together better when thrown so that with practice on those lizard packs she had worked out a way that her pretty blue balls of fire would explode on contact with their hide.

Harmless bluebell flames they were not -the flames made in her avian form were for destruction only at this point, but with practice she had managed to make some everlasting bluebell like flames that she placed in clumsy clay dishes as a way to light her way to her nest should she not be able to make it back before the sun had set. This caused her to later further experiment with exactly what fire could do.

The results were truly surprising when augmented with half-forgotten knowledge. She then proceeded to forget every limitation that she had been told about.

16\. Purple

The first few weeks of hunting larger game, those that she couldn't take down with talons or flames, Fleur felt like one big large ugly purple bruise. Her muscles ached, her bones ached and even her scraggly but well washed hair ached. Things roasted alive did not taste good for they were not cooked well, nor could they be preserved properly so that they were edible later. Roasted alive game was also not something that could easily and quickly be rendered and used as she needed and wanted. So she learned to hunt and do so like a hunter instead of a bird of prey or as a witch.

17\. Brown

Fleur was wearing it. It was the color of dirt, mud and other crud she washed off when should could spare the time to do so. It was the color of her tanned leather clothing that she had fashioned by using her talons as a cutting instrument for both sewing cord and pieces. As she gained skill she used the leather to make more things -scraps became stuffing for a pillow, while furs became her bed. There were days she yearned for proper shoes but she had no idea how to make stiff leather and so she made sandals. She was not the fashionable witch she once was but she was still a woman that appreciated accessories -so she made them as colorful as possible with scales, shells, fur and feathers.

The fur on her clothing had been burned and scrapped off. It was hot enough on the island naked, never mind wearing fur clothing. Still the idea of clothing was more comforting than needed as it was warm enough that she could do without it -and sometimes did especially during the more humid days.

18\. Black

There were days when only hunger and practicality spurred her from her nest as grief nearly choked her, if her residence could be called that anymore. The porch was halfway on vines but the nest was mostly on a large flat branch. Her nest originally began as a web of living vines, with smaller picked vines, branches and packed in with mud from the ground. A few straighter branches were stuck in the muck that was then cooked with a fire ball in hand creating a weak cement like mixture. These became first her walls once vegetation was weaved through them and then a little work and finesse created a roof.

It wasn't perfect -far from it- but it was her nest and shelter until she got the bright idea to burn into the tree to create a room large enough that she could crawl into and expand so that a storm would be unlikely to leave her without shelter again. The amount of ash created was immense and Fleur feared she'd never be clean again but she did get her room in the tree and more. Dedicated washing rendered her hair to a greyer version of her silver-blond hair but at least it wasn't black.

19\. White

Most people do not know this about trees but the most active parts of it are the roots, the cells beneath the bark and the leaves. Photosynthesis is important but as a tree grows larger parts of it can die as nutrients can only diffuse so far. Typically this is the center that suffers and it's commonly known as heart rot, especially when facilitated by fungi. The heart of the tree is also the toughest part of the tree usually as this is where all of the tree's waste products are usually stored.

Fleur had burned into her tree in a specific way -down and forward. This allowed her continue her work as the fire smoldered as she reduced parts of it to charcoal dust. Fleur never suspected that she had lit the equivalent of a ground fire in the rotting heart wood of the tree. Due to the lower levels of oxygen in the tree due as a result of her covering the entrance with a fur, the potentially life-threatening fire never went far or out of control and died a quiet death. The traces of where it burned showed up nicely against the white wood of the tree even as Fleur further excavated on those days not fit for hunting.

20\. Colourless

Fleur remembers when her nails used to be painted clear, but now they're far from that. There are white marks where shes has hit the nail against something, dirt under them and possibly blood that hasn't washed out from something she's killed.

Her colorful nails were proof of her being alive no matter how disgusting they might appear.

21\. Friends

Fleur first spots other humans and one blue man that looks to have gills wearing weapons or not as they laugh and joke like friends carrying barrels. She waits like death above listening to their chatter. It takes a while for Fleur to understand what they're saying -they're not using French or English but what sounds like Japanese even though none of them look a thing like the Japanese she knew from her world. Not her best language but not her worst either.

They seemed to be heading for the spring to fill up on water which means they'll likely see the evidence of yesterday's kill. Fleur allows herself to think what strange ship they're sailing on since there's no uniform, joy-riders wouldn't leave their home area and comes to the conclusion that this strange group of seventeen people -including the fish-like man in traditional Japanese clothing- are part of no official military. The strange cross symbol with the upside-down arch is shown either tattooed upon their skin or on their clothing except for the fishman shows that they're part of the same group and the ease they joke around with each other shows that those wearing the mark are no slaves of the fishman.

22\. Enemies

Fleur watches her potential enemies with curiosity. They have to walk through the dense undergrowth on an animal trail but of the group of seventeen only three stand out as potential threats to her -the ginger with the strangely protruding hair, the blue fishman and the sleepy looking guy with the cross symbol tattooed boldly on his chest. If this group proved to be her enemies or tried to capture her she'd gut and immolate them first.

23\. Lovers

Veela are known for being incredibly beautiful which is only enhanced by their allure. They're also known for transforming into harpy like avians and throwing fireballs when angered. This is something that anyone could find out. There were lots of other details that weren't made public about Veela. Traditions and specifics that weren't to be shared with outsiders.

Due to their allure there are all sorts of rumors surrounding their prowess as lovers, tales involving scandalous seductions and secret trysts. Some of these are true while others are empty boasts. Worst is that most Veela while undoubtedly sexual beings, most are loyal once that partner or partners are selected. The criteria of the partner varies but a proper bond is a wonderful fulfilling experience so the idea of being captured and turned into a sex slave is something every sane Veela fears worse than death. Something that Fleur was not keen on allowing to occur should they even attempt it. She'd sooner kill herself than allow that.

24\. Family

The Whitebeard Pirates are the largest floating family on the seas. Filled with scoundrels, rascals, rift-raft, con-artists, unfortunates, socially incompetents, sob-stories and unwanted children of the seas it is the love that Pops has for them all no matter the back story, species, gender or strength that binds them all together. It's not a family without quarrels, nor is it without joys or sorrows.

25\. Strangers

It's understandable that when an untransformed but still armed Veela is finally noticed by the pirates that had previously been examining the dried blood pool from yesterday's kill that nothing was quite so unexpected as for Fleur to meet a group of strangers that day. To be fair the pirates weren't expecting her either. Nor were they expecting how devastating her smile was either.

26\. Teammates

Later no one is sure what started the melee that ensued but Jinbei sending water at the attacking woman was not a good idea since it was neatly vaporized by a blue blaze of fire, exploding into a heavy, choking steam. The pirates huddled facing outwards as Thatch and Marco try to subdue her without killing her. It would have been easier for Marco without Thatch as the forth division commander kept getting distracted by how pretty she was.

In Thatch's defense, she wasn't wearing much, but a leather corset and skirt covered more than most bikinis.

27\. Parents

Edward Newgate, better known to the world as the feared Yonko Whitebeard was not worried about his children he had sent to get fresh water from an out of the way island that was still one of his but certainly not inhabited the last time they were there. Between Marco and Thatch they wouldn't let any harm occur to their brothers. Jinbei joining them to speed up the search for fresh water and allow them to find edible animals faster was practically overkill for any potential danger on that island.

28\. Children

His two commanders looked incredibly sheepish as they reached the Moby Dick carrying either a fully grown wild child or a survivor of some accident at sea. Likely the latter as most wild children were too frightened or curious to be as insolent looking as she was. Nor did they dismiss his height so easily.

"Soap?" She asked.

Whitebeard laughed as one of his adopted daughters led this woman to the baths.

29\. Birth

Cleaning up properly with soap and hot water in the shower was a heavenly experience for someone that had been scrubbing clean with sand for who knows how long. She scrubbed her skin pink, glad she was naturally without unseemly hair, and thoroughly washed her hair. The clothing was a good fit if somewhat simple. The women on board the pirate ship -Fleur knew they were pirates by the bones on the sail, though pirates were largely a thing of the past in her own world- proved courteous by providing a hair brush, scissors and other amenities. A quick mani and pedicure, followed by struggles with the hairbrush and scissors returned her hair to a more tolerable and with time certainly to be glossy state.

She washed away her grief, uncertainty and old regrets and was reborn Fleur Delacour -proud Veela.

30\. Death

Fleur Weasley had died when her Bill had died. She had no idea what happened to him -an accident, murdered, suicide or being unlucky in his search for her in that temple. Fleur Weasley was destroyed in that temple and killed by the transition to this new world. Veela were not phoenixes, but after returning to something resembling civilization and getting clean she sure felt like one.

31\. Sunset

She could see the hated orange of sunset when she emerged from the baths, dressed in the skimpy shirt and soft knee-length trousers. There were a couple of gasps from those in the hall, especially from the one who had lent her the supplies to clean up with. She needed no reminders that she had certainly not been at her best after her ordeal.

32\. Sunrise

Marco had thought that their unexpected find would still have been sleeping in the guest room by the time sunrise came around. Finding her sitting on the rail glaring at the sunrise was not expected.

"What did the sun ever do to you yoi?"

"Wake. Sleep."

"Ah." Their guest was clearly not a morning person.

"Need things."

"We searched for where you were living but didn't find it."

She smirked then and jumped over the side.

33\. Too Much

Marco had acted on instinct to hurl himself off the ship. He had a lot of practice catching brothers that had playfully and not so playfully been thrown off ship. Finding out that she was a bird zoan explain her fondness for watching things from above and why they couldn't find her shelter or any trail of it -flying leaves no trail.

34\. Not Enough

His zoan transformation was into a phoenix -made of fire and thus bright enough to be easily seen. Hers was more subtle -she had clearly gained bird features but she wouldn't be showing up to any look out nearby. The sun might be rising but the jungle canopy would block out a lot of light. An avian a phoenix might be, provider of its own light even, but able to see in the dark he could not.

35\. Sight

Thankfully there were little wisps of curious blue fire to light the way while he navigated through areas a bird his size was not meant to go. He spotted a collection of them closer together and stopped there when he realized that the other lights had the same purpose as those that led him here -a guide.

36\. Smell

This clearly was a nest of some sort but he saw nothing that suggested she slept here. Certainly she cooked, dried and smoked her kills here but the leather was tanned and that was certainly not done here judging by the lack of smell.

37\. Sound

Marco changed that judgement of where she slept when he realized he heard human footsteps on stairs when there were none to be found. A large piece of fur he had dismissed as scrap or a cushion had blocked his eyes from seeing the entrance in the low light.

Now that was clever.

38\. Touch

Marco found he didn't get much of a choice in following her as her hand dragged him into the tree's surprisingly well lit tunnel that was filled with those odd blue flames and hand carved. The amount of time it would have taken to carve this out staggered Marco.

39\. Taste

The air inside the tree held a hint of smoke on his tongue but before this went any further he had to ask, "What's your name? I'm Marco."

"I..." She began, before stating, "Fleur."

"Fleur." Marco said as tested the name on his tongue and to see if he had pronounced it acceptably. All sorts of people wound up in the New World so sometimes certain names were not pronounced the way you thought they should be. She nodded and so they moved on.

40\. Sixth sense

The tunnel in the tree seemed to last longer than it did due to how narrow it was especially since it wasn't meant for a man of his taller and wider dimensions, but the cavernous room it led to showed that this woman had clearly been here for over a year if not several more in order to carve it all out, much less furnish it. His own sixth sense told him that this room was not the only one but just the only 'finished' room. Lit with those curious ever burning blue flames Marco could see the decorations burned and carved into the wood change in the flickering fire light.

41\. Shape

Getting all bent out of shape over the little things was a sure-fire way to end up a stressed pirate, something Thatch had no interest in becoming. Still according to a look-out, the distractingly pretty lady had been up and had Marco taking her to the island again. Likely to pick up a few things of importance from where she had stayed on that island.

42\. Triangle

Seeing Marco fly back carrying something was something that Thatch practically expected. Marco tended to be something of a pushover when new people joined their family for a few weeks. A few mental rings akin to the triangle used to signal food was ready to the crew alarmed him that Marco was not carrying everything on his talons -she had her own things in talons of her own too.

43\. Square

It took Thatch a minute to realize something wasn't right like a square peg in a round hole. He was pretty sure that her ability involved crazy blue fire and being distractingly pretty. Wait, that was at least one devil fruit ability already...

Thatch wasn't sure if it was fate or irony that caused Marco to meet quite possibly the only other avian mythical zoan in existence.

44\. Circle

Getting the story out of their new guest took work due to how her language skills had eroded while on the island and what skills remained were high class business formal and not pirate casual slang or nautical terminology. It was a lot of going in circles but the gist of it was that her husband had died -the specifics weren't mentioned at all- before she had gotten to that island and the wariness around certain people meant that they had likely been attacked by pirates. She had no idea exactly what happened to her in-laws or her children except that if someone had attacked them they would have fought. On the bright side she wasn't trying to kill anyone now, which was nice of her.

Thatch still had a few subordinates upset about their burns no matter how pretty a woman did it. It made him wonder how such scum managed to capture such a woman since he was pretty sure he knew how she had escaped.

45\. Moon

Their unexpected island find was certainly attractive, and like the moon she caused men to do all sorts of strange things when exposed too long. Curiously she was still grounded after at least a few years all alone on that island, and actually a lot older than she appeared. Thatch was not the person wondering how she managed to look in her late twenties at the oldest when she was over forty. The medical personnel did a thorough examination after she was cleaned up and determined a number of oddities that were blamed on her unknown devil fruit, but the very faint stretch marks did prove she had at least one kid.

Fleur was not going to tell them exactly how old she thought she was because they'd never believe that she was a little away from fifty, even the pirate doctors who had to poke, prod and examine her. She reluctantly allowed them to give her vaccines, even if they had to use needles.

46\. Star

Watching the evening's stars fade as the sun came up quickly became one of Fleur's favorite things to do on the Moby Dick, the pirate ship she had found her way onto. For all that they were pirates most of them didn't seem to be too bad in terms of personality, character and honor. Some were worse perverts than others and a few required a few casual smacks to the head on a frequent basis to prevent them from professing bad poetry, sappy lines and outbreaks of drooling, which their crew-mates were delighted to provide as necessary. A few others required more than that but a few burns were educational.

Thankfully this allowed her to determine the hierarchy of those on board. The fish-man was a frequent visitor named Jinbei, the man with the strangely styled hair was Thatch and then there was Marco, who was just under the Captain in terms of authority but surpassing his Captain in terms of knowing his crew, all thousand several hundred of it and the staff. There were others that were theoretically equal to Marco in authority, but their deference showed otherwise.

This often resulted in Marco being busier than most other pirates with few moments to himself as others were constantly clamoring for his attention. Still when it was too early for all but those unlucky or those wanting to be up at night to be asleep and neither could sleep, they gravitated towards each other. After a few conversations, in which Marco determined the extent of her knowledge -not much- but she hadn't been much interested in the sky before.

Marco was the one that taught her the night sky, with unexpected patience and a relaxed smile on his face when she said something slangy wrong.

47\. Heart

Fleur felt her heart mending as she found her place on the Moby Dick. For a time she had flirted on the edge of guest status. This wasn't much but it protected her from having to do ship-chores or other work if she didn't feel like it as she adjusted to having people around her again. It also meant that she was free to go without strings from the Moby Dick and leave them all behind her.

Marco often accompanied her on her initial shopping trips but when he couldn't, he'd send a few of his subordinates to tail her in order to prevent unwanted trouble from overly pushy men. This allowed Fleur to do many things but most important was learning how much things were worth and what certain things were without appearing to be a mentally deficient child or crazy woman. Fleur had missed haggling. She had a small stipend for personal essentials but for larger purchases she had to sell those hard won skins and furs which meant she wanted the best price for them.

Unexpected was the fact that sometimes various professionals dragged her along to negotiate prices in bulk for them. The crew was massive and needed an appropriate amount of supplies for their upkeep.

48\. Diamond

What truly cemented her worth to keep on board was that she was what Jozu said was a diamond in the rough. As her language skills were built up -non-native dialects and slang had confused her terribly- and friendships were made despite the allure's isolating effect, she proved it when the typically reckless idiots attacked the fleet and a rare desperate idiot made it aboard the paddle ship she was on and she burned him from the inside out to prevent the idiot from taking one of the ship's nurses hostage. The idiot had wrote her off as not-worth noticing due to wearing the same uniform for the day.

Fleur however was not as 'rough' as Jozu said -just ignorant and naive about this new world she found herself in and its inhabitants. Her combat technique and skills were clumsy when it came to human enemies as they had been polished and refined on animals. It was understandable as Fleur had been a witch -witches fought using spells from a distance. Fleur was still a Veela -as a species they were easily ired pyromanics with wings and other avian features. Veela were not human, nor were they dumb enough to be beasts. However Veela were very different beings compared to humanity. Fleur was far closer to what her ancestors were like than what she had been before.

The instinct was always there -now it had been brought to the surface to be honed and made deadly. She had delved into the mysteries of fire-based magic and had learned to use her knowledge to hunt in the most efficient methods she had available. Fleur was not rough, just a bit unpolished.

49\. Club

"Tell me, how would you like to spar." Fleur says one morning to Marco.

Marco could have been knocked over with a feather when normally not even one of Jozu's clubs could do such a thing. Fleur had been a guest and sort-of crewmate for a while, generally working either as a nurse or a rigger once she learned the knots. She actually knew how to heal things like broken bones with her abilities making her an unofficial nurse and wasn't blood-shy either for all that she muttered in a foreign language as she did it. Further talk with the doctors and nurses said that she clearly knew the basics and in some areas further beyond that but only had issues in translating that knowledge. She at least was keen to correct any lack of knowledge. Her work as a rigger was more sporadic, but being able to turn into a bird meant the dangers of working the rigging were much reduced as falling from the spar was unlikely to cause damage, no matter how dramatic the sway or how dangerous the winds.

Fleur notable avoided most confrontations, but was not shy to burn those that violated her personal space, nor in acting in defense of others. Marco continued to weigh the pros and cons of doing so, as he wanted to against what he was needed to do. This kept his mind busy enough that he didn't react to the warning his haki gave him.

Not getting the response quickly enough she attacked, talons connecting solidly into his body. So Fleur's morning lessons shifted from the stars to combat. Stars were there for wishing and to show the way but what good were wishes when they'd never come true? What good was finding your way when was your home was under a different sky? So Fleur using the pragmatism survival had taught her learned to fight as best as she could.

Fleur developed a reputation for having a nasty kick and being wickedly fast with a lance on ship. Then she went without the lance and just used one made of fire instead for all that it was no less solid.

50\. Spade

Whitebeard or Pops as he preferred, had a lot of wild, reckless and crazy children. All of them were adopted but some took it better than others. So when Pops abducted and adopted a young and up and coming super rookie and his crew only for said super rookie to try and kill their old man, well there were a number of betting pools set up. It wasn't the first time Pops' preferred type of adoptees tried to off him.

Fleur was quite happy to win a few of those bets with her off hand comment about 'stubborn little boys not understanding until they were beaten a hundred times or more.'

51\. Water

Ace had slowly adjusted being a part of the Yonko's crew. Even so he had a lot of frustrations to work out as he adapted and took to setting the nearby water boiling under the guise of training. Thanks to his narcolepsy he kept odd hours so some days he'd flick little snaps of fire as if they were fireflies and others times he mimicked the sun in going down.

So the first time he tried something like that on the main ship and not on one of the paddle boats he was understandably confused to be attacked by a harpy lady armed with blue fire.

52\. Fire

Veela were creatures of air and fire so finding a nocturnal Veela was impossible. This did not mean that they were 'morning people' however. Fleur had adapted to the lack of sun in England then had spent a lot of time in other more sunny climes but she was not and never had been a morning person even as a child. On the island it wasn't so bad but Fleur liked to look as best as she could which meant she needed sleep. She enjoyed those extra minutes spent resting before she absolutely could not stand to lounge in bed anymore. She knew about the orange loving pyromaniac that the Captain had abducted and adopted.

He however didn't know that while his odd training hours weren't known to most of the ship, Fleur had been a guest and had never moved out of her room. This meant she was sleeping reasonably up high and had a window. Waking up early due to an idiot boy messing around before dawn easily angered her swiftly enough to force her avian transformation and attack.

53\. Earth

Marco was certain that this was a spectacle found no where else on this world at any other time if only because of the rarity of the abilities being used. Ace's mera-mera fruit was at least documented. The only thing they learned about Fleur's was that she got her abilities from her grandmother, and her grandmother obtain hers from her maternal ancestors which neatly explained why such a devil fruit was undocumented if it was kept a family treasure and secret. Waking up to find two pyromaniacs intent on roasting each other or beating the fire out of the other while yelling all manner of insults just made Marco realize it was going to be one of those days.

54\. Wind

The wind under Fleur's wings was wonderful. The blue fire in her hands felt cool while the thermals from the rude boy's flames kept her aloft without much exerted effort. A full-blooded Veela would sprout wings from their shoulders like an angel but any mixed bloods that were Veela enough to transform had their arms transform into wings. Previously Fleur would have thought that putting a part-blood against a full-blooded Veela would have the part-blood lose as those arms would have been used for both flying and fighting with fire.

However her time on the island had taught her the obscure art of pyrokinesis while using and then later playing with fire. If this little boy made of fire thought he was going to best her... he had a lot to learn and a willing teacher if he didn't mind getting burned while playing with fire on this side of the ship.

After all, this little boy might be made of fire -logia- but that didn't mean he couldn't get burned. Even Veela could get burned if faced with dark enough magic but from sheer heat? The Veela race would have died out if they couldn't withstand the heat of their own fire.

55\. Spirit

Marco was certain that while Fleur had the control of her flames needed to not burn down the ship, Ace did not. Thankfully Fleur was over the water so the threat of the ship burning into cinders was much reduced. Still, while he approved of her getting more combat experience she could at least find a nice deserted island or even a sand bar to get into a fire fight with the recently joined super-rookie and not do it on or near the wooden and flammable ship.

This in mind, he flew a nice interception and locked talons with Fleur as they fell into a spinning flight. They don't disengage their entangled talons and instead circle the ships in a dizzying display of aerial acrobatics. They landed flush faced on the deck, where Fleur ignored Ace and disappeared into the depths of the ship while Marco ignored Ace and went for a fly to get some time and space to think about what doing that meant and what he was going to do about it.

Such as if he were going to honor the spirit of such a flight since they both knew what that sort of flight meant.

56\. Breakfast

Ace was confused at breakfast. Why was that harpy on ship and who was it? Spying Thatch nursing his drink as if he had overdone drinking last night and finding the world fuzzy he decided to be brightly cheerful and annoy Thatch with his questions about the newest mystery he had found on this ship. This lasted until he face-planted on the table from his narcolepsy.

Thatch eyed the currently snoozing pirate warily amused. Wouldn't Ace be in for a surprise to find out who that 'fire-flinging harpy' was? Teenagers finding out that the alluring woman they were drooling over and watching from afar was old enough to be their mother never got old. She certainly was mature enough for that. Ace also finding out that every male's walking wet dream turned into that harpy-like creature would also be worth paying gold for. Thatch knew from watching Marco and Fleur's spars that Fleur had enough control to selectively turn parts of her feathery. That Ace didn't recognize her in her hybrid form was not unexpected -her hair darkened and the beak distorted facial features- and should be capitalized on.

57\. Lunch

Fleur thought about skipping lunch as she had breakfast. After the dizzy, talon-locked flight she had been more giggly than a school girl and as stupidly happy as she had been on her honeymoon if not more so considering the mess that occurred after her wedding to her Bill.

Veela were loyal to their chosen partners but partners were not for life should something unfortunate happen and thoughts of that flight caused heat to pool in places it hadn't for years and reminded her that she hadn't been with a man for several years. Her husband had not been her first but she had thought him to be her last, and the expected emotional pain was less than expected now that she thought about her late husband.

58\. Dinner

Determined to obtain at least something for lunch caused her to run into the man that had just reawakened her sexual appetite.

Marco may not have had a phoenix to research his zoan form from but he had other birds and that made him more knowledgeable than his brothers about birds than he'd care to admit to. This knowledge included mating habits, including those of predatory birds, such as whatever-it-was that Fleur turned into. He didn't know exactly what Fleur turned into as a bird that controlled fire or could spew it from her beak like a dragon was unknown -bets ranged from a siren to a harpy to some unknown bird that was easily irritated- but he did know that her avian form was a raptor as did anyone who saw how sharp her beak was. Marco also was adept enough to spot flustered behavior and knew what that meant considering how in-tune with her animal instincts and desires Fleur was.

"So dinner off ship?" He asked. "I'll fly."

His answer was an enthusiastic kiss on the lips and a comment of letting her get changed to something suitable.

59\. Food

Marco had long since picked up that Fleur was fond and knowledgeable about the finer things in life. So taking her out to a low-class place wasn't to be done. Nor did he have time to call for a reservation at a place that would suit someone like Fleur on one of Pops' islands.

Instead he did things like a pirate. He used the favors some of the chefs owed him to get them to prepare a picnic on short notice, stole a good bottle of wine and glasses that he was surprised they had -his ship brothers were far from gentle and wine glasses were notoriously frail. The chefs had thoughtfully included a blanket as well. Cheeky bastards.

60\. Drink

Privacy on a ship is notoriously hard to come by which is why they were having their date off-ship. Fleur hadn't dressed up much -a hat, pale sundress that women would wear to the beach and sandals held on by ribbons and Fleur couldn't look less like a pirate if she tried. They hadn't tried to sneak off, nor hide what they were up to so the gossip was sure to stir up trouble in their absence.

The island they were picnicking on was one of Pop's on the uninhabited side that was full of dangerous and unstable cliffs which made it difficult to get to unless a person could fly. Still it was a wonderful spot with a rare view.

So they ate, drank and talked. Fleur's language skills had recovered to a reasonable level so it wasn't a chore to decipher what she meant and it was even fun to find the word when she couldn't, as there was quite the difference in the formal language she defaulted to and the slang he grew up speaking. Marco wasn't sure if it was him realizing that he loved this woman or Fleur's alluring presence in combination with the wine but he certainly felt drunk.

Drunk enough to thoroughly kiss this woman.

61\. Winter

Marco's kisses were certainly adept in further dragging her slumbering libido from its long hibernation, sending far more warmth to parts of her left untouched except for washing since her husband's death.

The French were a sensual people and lines of poetry flashed through her mind and none had words that were able to describe how wonderful this was or how desperate she was that this sexual thawing continued.

62\. Spring

The food had long since been eaten and plates packed away, so all Marco had to do was move the bottle and glasses into the basket and lay Fleur out on the blanket once she was out of the sun dress held up by the simple knot behind her neck. Deft fingers used to far more complex knots made quick work of the lazy knot allowing him to see all of Fleur.

"What a treasure you are." He breathed out in awe.

63\. Summer

Finding out that she had nothing under that sundress was strangely arousing, more so than he was comfortable admitting to himself since she had rode him here instead of transforming herself. It was still less arousing than the sight of her skin and wearing only a smile. She quickly divested him his shirt, loosened his sash and trousers as they let their ardent passion burn hotter than a summer's sun.

64\. Fall

The first time they joined their bodies was after Marco worshiped every bit of skin he cared to and more as he wanted their first time to be something more than wonderful. That was after she had him nearly falling to his knees with her tongue. Marco may not have known her previous husband or what Fleur really turned into when she transformed but the widow clearly knew what she was doing, what she liked, and was likely willing to experiment with the right incentive. Marco had never previously been jealous of a dead man before but there was always a first time for everything.

65\. Passing

Sneaking back on board the Moby Dick was not something Marco had had much success with in the past. His avian form was made of fire and was bright enough to be easily noticed in poor light or at night and there were too many pirates on the deck during the day to not get noticed. Fleur's form on the other hand didn't produce light and made for much easier sneaking since they had just glided down from above the clouds. Whatever she turned into could glide nearly as quiet as an owl, although that could have been the result of practice.

Once on board there was a different problem that Marco had not anticipated.

"Which quarters?"

"Yoi?"

"A passing interest, this is not."

Marco had no objections to pursuing whatever this was further. He hadn't intended it to be a fling either, as that would disrespect their friendship and the lady herself too. "My quarters."

66\. Rain

Rain misting against Marco's windows greeted them next morning. It wasn't commonly know that most birds adjusted their sleeping patterns based on the light available. This carried over to avian zoans somewhat and was muddled further by the human circadian clock. So the pair of lovers woke at a time when the light would be peaking in but wasn't. Today was a day that just begged for to be spent in bed, wrapped up in a lover's warmth.

So they did just that and more.

67\. Snow

Knocking pounded Marco's door, and then the locked was tested before someone else knocked and the voices outside the door got into a scuffle. A third person knocking on the door added his voice into the confusion.

Marco and Fleur were not amused to have their afterglow interrupted. They were less amused when the history of abuse his door had suffered showed and the wood frame holding the lock in place broke allowing the door to swing open.

The three in the hall were instantly frozen as if they had been tossed into snowdrifts.

68\. Lightning

Quick as lightning there were apologies for the broken door, a stuttered summon for Marco that could clearly now wait, and an appreciative glance of Fleur's frame. The apologetic lady-pirate dragged his staring comrade away before he started drooling. The door was closed after them.

"Are they men? Not little boys that haven't seen a woman?"

"Don't mind them, yoi."

"Why do that? I have a man here and I intend to ravish him."

"Shouldn't I, the notorious pirate, do the ravishing?"

"Try it." She challenged.

69\. Thunder

Pop's booming laughter reminded Marco that the old man did know everything that went on in his ship, and while Pops would usually keep such relationships private, getting 'caught' changed that.

Fleur seemed to not mind the attention she gained from everyone around the two of them and once her lips met his Marco didn't mind either.

70\. Storm

The Whitebeard Pirates partied like a storm. Lots of noise, lots of light and lots of alcoholic beverages shared, splashed and chugged like dry ground after a drought. Also like after a storm, those still standing took care of the resulting mess and damages.

Some of them did anyway. Marco was busy cursing as Fleur tormented him with tongue and hands before they attempted to reach paradise without leaving Fleur's room.

71\. Broken

Marco had taken to sleeping in Fleur's room until his door frame was replaced or the various wood workers came up with some solution that wouldn't have his door hanging open and banging on the wall. Those that slept nearby would complain enough to make sure of it. Placing a chair under the doorknob was not a permanent fix and was not conductive to the mood. It was not the first time his door or the door frame had been broken but Marco suspected rotten luck on the first day and conspiracy after that since it wasn't fixed within the week. Pirates and subtlety were not synonymous at all.

Marco's quarters were larger than Fleur's but part of his room had been filled with sailing paraphernalia and years worth of accumulation of various items making it seem smaller. Fleur's room was far less cluttered in comparison and delightfully feminine in subtle ways. Marco remembered helping her carry in the animal pelts but he wasn't sure what exactly happened to them since then, but he didn't exactly mind.

She had kept that corset, and gotten several more that made him less inclined to wonder about things he didn't really care about.

72\. Fixed

Ace wasn't certain what he'd done to deserve being glared at angrily by both Marco and his lover who was the object of any number of fantasies on board including some of his own.

"Can you train on the other side of the ship? Fleur's room has a wonderful view of this light show yoi."

"What happened to curtains?" Ace asked. He had checked that all of said curtains were closed, seeing more than he would like to admit to about some of his ship-brothers, just as to avoid a repeat of being attacked by that harpy. He wanted to find out who she was but not like that.

"Too thin." Then Fleur smirked and Ace realized that meant trouble.

73\. Light

According to Fleur if he was going wake her up by playing with fire then he should at least be taught how to do so properly so he'd stop playing with it at odd times and waking her up. Asking for proof of her supposed fire mastery saw Ace meeting the harpy lady again. Marco wished for a camera. Marco totally understood why Fleur called Ace adorable.

"First lesson, what is fire?"

"Heat?" He asked back.

"It's light and heat. Energy. Both the amount of heat and light can be varied to produce all manner of effects. A fire that burns underwater, to one that doesn't burn at all to being an invisible blast of heat that melts metal instantly."

"Fire can't do all of that!"

"Normal fire can't, but if you know how, apply the knowledge correctly who knows what is possible? You could even create your own signature flame." Blue fire lit up in her hand, illuminating the darkness. "See the color? It says it is hot. Feel the fire and it is not. It will not heat or burn anything that is not directly above it." Ace did as directed, feeling a little foolish but he _could _feel a coolness at the base of the fireball in Fleur's hand and warmth at the top. "Such things are made possible by mastering the first two lessons."

74\. Dark

Ace was completely in the dark when it came to the properties of light as a particle, the colors that the human eye saw and how this actually tied into as a lesson about mastering fire. Finding out that people had a limit to their visual light range and that if a fire burned pure and hot enough that it wasn't visible was the first lesson.

The second made his brain hurt as she explained the properties of light as a wave of energy and how depending on the frequency or wavelength it did different things and how that meant he could theoretically do things that honestly he knew he'd never would have thought of previously. He had considered them to be things that couldn't be done with fire as he had previously understood of it -block den-den mushi broadcasting signals, give tans, work as an x-ray projector or send invisible but not immediately deadly rays of light.

As Ace was a fire logia he had to amend his definition of 'fire' to even consider these uses. This first meant that he could also learn to control his fire so that he could have it in any color irrespective of how hot it actually was, to make it have different colors and even effects that were not known in the Devil Fruit Encyclopedia.

Fleur who could generate fire if not as much as Ace, preferred blue flames for everything obvious, which was explained as easy to see and thus test things with, known as dangerous and prevented people from stupidly getting in her way. The lesson and demonstration also highlighted exactly how dangerous Kizaru could be if he bothered to learn all of this concerning light.

To Marco this proved to him that her devil fruit abilities were clearly well documented and explored by those that had previously had such abilities. Such a massive volume of information suggested many, many generations of investigation, hard work and intense secrecy. Secrecy, a high level of general education in most areas and the way she carried herself said far more about her background that she did.

75\. Shade

The third lesson was something of a review of the first two a few days later in the early morning light. Ace had incentive to answer the questions correctly because she had threatened to burn his hat -not in those exact words but the threat was well understood. It came with a practice exercise too as she demonstrated with a sun-hat how 'fire' could be used to not burn objects and strangely enough used to lift and make her hat do strange, erratic movements until it landed on Thatch's head without even a flicker of heat to burn Thatch's hair. This was a lesson in learning how to control heat and light irrespective of each other, compounded with the next lesson -willing fire to have a new property such as solidness. Marco had pitched in telling how this would help him later on, which made the logia scowl at the prospect of more lessons.

Ace was certain she had another motive than just teaching him. She clearly wanted him to burn his hat during practice. What was wrong with orange anyway?

76\. Who?

It was bound to happen eventually. That is, Fleur getting her first bounty poster. She wasn't the most active of the pillaging pirates on ship. Actually she didn't do much pillaging at all but she helped out with minor things where ever necessary -she even had her own nurse uniform as a result because one of the stranger things she could do with fire was fix bones- but she had proven to be a serious defender of the ship itself and would attack those who attacked first.

77\. Where?

The incident that brought her to world attention was when the marines were running a blockade on an island that was a favorite retirement spot of Pop's older children as the marines were searching for and killing those sons and more sympathizers if they could. It was one of the steps in 'liberating' an island from the pirates or those who didn't agree with the World Government. Usually the island was softened up by several more warships, high ranking officers and maybe a Shichibukai but it seems that the 'scouting' party was too overzealous by half which alerted those loyal to Pops that something was wrong and prompted them to send for help.

78\. What?

What happened is that Fleur asked for permission to wipe out the slowly approaching blockade by herself as a demonstration to Ace about what she was teaching him about fire. Most people were confused about that -the majority didn't know that Fire-fist was getting lessons about fire in the first place. Ace was a logia. He was fire. Why would he need lessons?

How conjuring a massive hurricane like wind storm that tossed marine warships about like toddler toys during a tantrum related to those lessons was something no one could figure out while watching. Never mind how a warship was then split in half, sucked down slightly only to be spit out in a bubbling geyser related to 'fire' lessons either. Marine warships had a sea stone coating!

Pops only laughed, because here was someone who had actually mastered their abilities in like those of his generation had and was teaching that bratty son of his to do the same. Most fruit users nowadays were brats that thought having a few special abilities made them dangerous.

79\. How?

Was easily explained although only those that studied the weather truly understood how the tornado was formed beyond spiraling hot air and even they were a bit lost on how much heat the 'lance' of heat that sliced the warship in half had to melt through the war-ship's metal shell. The effectiveness was clearly seen and some of the bubbling was a 'side-effect' of the angle. The geyser was because she burned the water under the ship to cause an explosion of steam.

80\. Why?

Most of those on ship accepted her obvious reason, even if those that had previously seen a lesson in progress knew there was likely some other reasons -likely a personal reason- to use such a show of force. Fleur clearly wasn't capable of sustaining such force currently, since she was clearly tired and not in the mood for celebrating no matter how much such a decisive victory deserved it. This led to a new theory of what had happened to her late husband and the idea that he was a victim of marine 'liberation' forces. Previous wariness around certain pirates was written off as good sense and possibly as them having a resemblance to those that did it.

81\. When?

When was the main motivating reason for her overly violent response, not that she shared that information with anyone. This was a day that she'd have preferred to not leave her room at all so she could mourn. It was the anniversary of the battle of Hogwarts, where when treated for spell damage the potion had induced a miscarriage to a child she didn't even know she had inside her. Next was the fact that her eldest daughter who she'd never -bar a miracle of magic- see again was born that day.

Due to the blockade situation she couldn't mourn and grieve like a witch so she did it as a Veela and burned her sadness to fuel the flames.

It left her feeling rather empty afterwards.

82\. If

Ifs were a constant on the Grand Line where surprises lurked behind every wave and were survived through strength, luck and foreknowledge. That was just the life of a pirate that wasn't the Captain who in turn held responsibility for keeping them all alive and whole.

As his things migrated to Fleur's room and only his junk was left in his cabin, Marco had to wonder if their relationship was going to ever prompt Pops to use his Captain powers to make their relationship more official than lovers.

83\. And

It wasn't like he was getting younger either. He had been with Pops for over two decades -approaching three- and was one of the few that remembered him before his signature mustache was grown. His devil-fruit allowed him to stay in peak fighting condition no matter the physical abuse he took but that didn't mean he was going to live forever because if it was, Marco would never have gotten the fruit in the first place. Besides, he kinda liked the idea of being married to Fleur and having a proper claim on her.

84\. He

He asked.

85\. She

She said yes.

86\. Choices

The new second division commander was shopping with the sixteenth's commander, looking at fabric and other things he needed Izo's help in choosing from since growing up with mountain bandits did not prepare him for such things.

"So why curtains?"

"One of my favorite practice spots is situated just right so that if any of my fire gets too bright it'll wake them up." Ace replied. That Marco and Fleur were not happy to be roused from snuggling went unsaid along with their favorite way of dealing with annoyances tough enough to handle the punishment -a solid kick, possibly with talons. Ace preferred Fleur's more fiercely clawed kicks over Marco's absurdly strong ones even if Fleur was getting better at actually hurting him when he became his element. It seemed that no one had taught Fleur to not fight fire with fire and it was dismaying to know that it was working. He was made of fire! It shouldn't be able to hurt him!

"That makes sense and is sweet in an awkward sort of way."

"Thanks I guess. Now which blue do you think Fleur would like best?"

"What blues are most dominant in her room?"

"Blue is blue. Does it really matter?" Ace asked, completely serious and slightly concerned.

"You heathen child you." Izo said in such a way that his 'delicate' sensibilities were affronted at the thought.

"Why is such a simple gift so difficult?!"

"Actually knowing what you're going to get them as a wedding present puts you ahead of a lot of pirates." Izo commented, relenting slightly.

87\. Life

Life was very interesting and hectic for a while as the big bash was planned, prepared for and occurring. Fleur and Marco soon realized that they should have quietly prepped the chefs for a feast, dressed up a little and had Pops marry them.

Now their own wedding had spun out of their control, Pops was allowing it since his children -this title extending even towards the forty plus allied crews to give an idea of the scale of everyone who was making themselves involved- were having fun and Pops was keeping an eye on them to make sure the bride and groom didn't see the craziness as a reason to leave and elope until the wedding mania had passed.

88\. School

The wedding ceremony was held in proper silence so that the couple's vows with a pirate twist could be heard by those withing hearing distance. The second that was over a cheer was heard loudly as pirates celebrated. The band struck up a song that was not the sort that allowed his less coordinated or his drunker ship-mates a chance in hell of actually dancing successfully.

It was far from Marco's first choice as the first dance a husband and wife should dance, but they succeeded to the surprise of many.

Fleur enjoyed dancing and had taught her man how to dance, something that Marco had enjoyed more than he thought he would and not just because of it making his wife happy.

89\. Work

The amount of stuff that had been left unattended during his honeymoon absence did not surprise him. His fellow commanders were good at lots of things but there was a reason that Marco's door lock had eventually broken the frame and not for the first time.

Marco was vital to running the fleet. Most of the commanders had previously been pirate captains themselves so they knew how to do their job they just weren't the best at communicating they had already done it to each other all the time which quickly ended up as a logistics nightmare with an excess of some supplies and a lack of others and who knew what else. Pops theoretically did this but in practicality it was the old man's weakspot and why Marco quickly transitioned into running the fleet while Pops was in command of it.

"Do you need help?" Fleur asked, eyeing the piles of reports with well-concealed amusement.

"Much appreciated, yoi."

90\. Home

This strange new world was very different and odd compared to her English home with Bill and her children that she was separated from. After leaving that island and the home she had carved out with her own two hands she had found a new one on a pirate ship.

When she had joined the crew she was not fond of some activities but the rough celebrations and characters had grown on her like the exploration teams she and her Bill had worked with as had the friends she had made on board. A fair number of them were on the medical staff

The Moby Dick was now her home and she wouldn't leave it and would defend it with all that she had.

91\. Birthday

Most of the time birthdays were not widely celebrated on Whitebeard's crew. This was largely due to the size of it -one thousand, six hundred and some odd men meant that while they could easily celebrate someone's birthday every day it would interfere with general operations of the ships and fleet. It was preferred to have someone sober in the upper reaches of the rigging after all.

There were exceptions since some of the crew didn't know their birthday, hadn't claimed a day for it either and then there were those that didn't want to celebrate their own birthday for other reasons.

Pop's birthday in contrast was highly celebrated. It was the bright idea of someone who didn't know how old Fleur really was -or didn't believe it- that brought up the idea of getting Pops grandchildren which caused everyone in ear-shot to look at the pair of love-birds on board as Pops laughed heartily. Fleur had just smiled, but Marco's face had been photo-worthy.

92\. Solstice

Fleur was not a very religious person, but clearing out the skies by working with the second division commander so that those that celebrated the solstice could celebrate the night properly allowed her to teach her student with the idiot hat the wider and somewhat-obvious applications of fire. The obvious ones were for controlling the weather somewhat, such as what they were doing now.

If some idiot was tossed overboard then she could teach him the subtler ones. The water was certainly cold enough for the medical use of heating and Ace could appreciate the prank value of heat when applied to hair. Giving Thatch ringlets would be amusing.

93\. Thanksgiving

Marco and Fleur were not young mentally despite however young they appeared. So it is no surprise that their ways of thanking and appreciating each other wasn't with fancy gifts or big splashy displays or smothering the other with physical affection like some selfish young couples did to show affection for the other.

Such appreciation was shown in a manner that had been established to work for them. Marco had taught her about the stars, the sea, the weather, the arts of combat and everything and more he had learned as a pirate. Fleur taught him how to appreciate, how to dance, subtleties in all sorts of things and eventually some of her native language.

Finding out that Fleur was likely from one of those rare islands that refused to give up their traditional language and culture even if they gave lip-service to the much larger and more powerful forces in the world explained Fleur's struggle to master the most common language on ship beyond the slang. It was always harder to learn a language you hadn't grown up with. This also explained her seeming gaps in education such some of her literacy issues which had been more towards archaic formal than a lot of what was typically used.

94\. Independence

Being married would not prevent Fleur from being perfectly capable of protecting herself, however nice it was to be looked after. This was something Marco understood from the start of their relationship and even before that.

Zoans as a rule tend to adopt characteristics from whatever they turn into. So seeing either Marco or Fleur take a quick wing around the ships was nothing new even after their marriage. A bird's eyesight was superior to most telescopes too. Unlike Marco, Fleur usually brought along a den-den mushi and stayed higher in altitude and out longer even after checking the perimeter of the ships. The den-den mushi was a faster way to send back news of any approaching ships and being off ship meant she could have privacy to contact her children or relatives. That's at least what most of his ship-mates assumed.

In reality Marco knew that Fleur knew what had to happen to have happened to her family since they were dead or not able to communicate with her and the den-den mushi was there more as a way to call him as needed when she decided that she wanted more practice at some of the more dangerous pyrokinetic arts so as to properly teach lessons on fire for Ace. There were days he loved his wife's independence, as her independent nature was vital to her personality and days he hated it as he could not help but worry for her, but mostly he loved her, which was the most important part.

95\. New Year

Some things are inevitable such as the passing of time, the changing of seasons and the pulling of the tides of fate.

The Whitebeard Pirates fighting the pirates that had the yomi-yomi no mi is one of them.

The pirate obtaining that devil fruit is not.

So as Thatch complained to Marco about missing out on such a find, Teach quietly murdered a former Spade Pirate turned Whitebeard Pirate and vanished off of the ship.

96\. Writer's Choice: Promise

The second division commander was understandably furious. He had passed that fruit on to one of his trusted long-time subordinates only for that subordinate to be murdered from behind.

The Whitebeard Pirates were pirates so they risked death and injury frequently from any adventure. To have their refuge, their beliefs shattered about the sanctity of their family was another blow, especially by such a man that had been one of them since his teenage years.

What made this incident so agonizing for the young commander was that it was another subordinate of his that did such a thing, a man that most of the fleet could recognize on sight and knew by name due to the length of time he had been part of the crew -Marshall D. Teach.

Fleur could understand the young man's need for vengeance as well as the Captain's concerns and desire for patience but she also knew better than to try and dissuade Ace from his chosen course. Yelling protests at a young man that wasn't and would not be listening would do no favors to anybody.

Instead she handed the narcoleptic commander a den-den mushi, told him that she would be calling and told him that he was free to use the cursed fire that she had him promise to not otherwise use unless the situation was dire. Teach was a man that deserved no less than complete annihilation along with whoever had joined such a monster. It took a special kind of evil to wait, plot and carry through actions that would wound so many emotionally.

Such actions stunned the crew into collective silence which allowed Ace to make a quick exit with a wicked smile on his face, and Fleur proved she had a better measure of Ace as a man than they did by pointing out that Ace was too stubborn and prideful by half but at least now they'd know where he was at and what he was up to. It would be only after his anger had cooled that he'd listen to reason but for now if her student was determined to do something stupid they could at least be smart about it and keep an eye on him.

More than a fair few pirates felt like they had been scolded for being stupid.

97\. Writer's Choice : Akagami

Apparently Akagami Shanks had something to talk about with Pops. What that reason was no one knew as no one had seen the letter the Yonko had sent to Pops since he had ripped it up and let the wind take it. Marco had warned her about Akagami's presence causing a loss of consciousness from those with weak wills but hadn't quite believed that he had such a range as to knock those loitering in the halls outside the infirmary she had just left. A quick peek back in proved that most of the medical personal inside was made of sterner stuff than those pirates in the hall.

Thankfully all attention was on the redhead, as he climbed onto the Moby Dick and walked towards Pops. This didn't last long as her Marco spoke up on behalf of his unconscious crew-mates. Her amusement rose when the redhead propositioned her husband to join his crew and was refused.

The other captain seemed a bit disheartened by the immediate refusal until he brightened. "Ah, that's right. You got married. I should ask her to join too."

"Please do not proposition my husband like that." Fleur commented as she weaved her way through a number of pirates to said husband.

Seeing Akagami's confused face was worth a small laugh from Fleur.

"Your poster does you no justice." Akagami declared, looking at 'Karura' Fleur accessingly and then at Marco. Those close enough that were awake could see him wrestling with the idea of someone like her marrying Marco. They had seen that expression often enough before and during and after the wedding before the couple had winged off for a few weeks. The scruffy, unshaven, laconic career pirate and the poised, aristocratic blond who was as pretty as any mermaid? Even some of the crew still had trouble with the idea of such a pairing. Whatever issue Akagami had with the idea was quickly dealt with faster than most had.

"So since-"

"No." They both denied him.

98\. Writer's Choice : Curses

Seeing the clash of wills that the two Yonko's had split the sky was something that Fleur would not forget. Still Akagami quickly left after that as he had said his piece but not before inviting Marco out for a drink and jauntily hopping over to his own ship.

"Troublesome man." Fleur commented from beside her husband.

"That's not the only one we know. How's Ace yoi?"

"He had a nice lead that he was exploring last call. I was going to call earlier but I stopped by the infirmary for a bit." She dug into her pockets for the den-den mushi.

A quick call later patched them to Ace.

"Yoi, Ace."

"Marco," the second division commander answered tersely. "This may not be the best time. Teach and his crew are dead -they were going to target Luffy- but that may have made me lose control over the fiendfyre and-"

"If my stupid apprentice kills himself with his own element I will not be amused." Fleur's voice cut in with the tone of voice that all children fear to hear from female authority figures.

"My own attacks and baelfire didn't work on Teach!" Ace retorted. Marco tried not to smile at the slightly desperate self-justification.

"I will be expecting a call back once you put it out." Fleur mentioned before ending the call. The silence hung heavy for a few minutes.

"Kill himself?" Jozu asked curious about how dangerous fire would have to be for a man made of it to die from it.

"Baelfire and Fiendfyre are cursed fires. They're imbued with specific attributes and will. Baelfire wounds do not heal. It is a parasitic fire that eats flesh while it attacks the nerves specifically, beyond the usual burns fires give. Nasty, incapacitating but not usually used for killing. Fiendfyre is almost alive and desires to consume everything. Like any living thing it desires freedom and will turn on any too weak to control it. It is very difficult to use properly in a fight, and even after the fight is over it will still want to consume all. It is a last-resort and usually forbidden for good reason because there are easier ways to commit suicide."

The commanders were relieved that Ace called back soon after that. Ace was promptly forbidden from ever using fiendfyre again -something he agreed with after he had toasted a quarter of the island during his fight and reduced another quarter into molten slag while struggling to put it out. His ship had been trapped in the molten island slag so as soon as he got it out, he'd be heading back. Thatch had asked about the status of the devil fruit that had started this whole mess but Ace was pretty certain it had either been burnt or buried under island slag.

99\. Writer's Choice : Nest

Ace had known his sensei for a few years now and Marco for a bit longer than that since he had only properly met Fleur after she had first attacked him. So he was pretty sure that the two of them nesting in the crow's nest of one of the shorter masts like that was not normal. Fleur was partially in her hybrid form -her full bodied form was some sort of huge eagle- while Marco was happily strutting on the rail fully phoenix-shaped. If it hadn't been first thing in the morning Ace would have suspected there was alcohol involved. Lots and lots of alcohol as neither were light-weights.

Deciding this needed a wiser and more experienced mind to deal with he obtained Thatch and Namur both of whom were similarly perplexed if far more annoyed to be up this early. As a group they decided a more thorough investigation was needed and they turned to a game of rock-paper-scissors to determine who exactly would deal with those two. Thatch lost and quickly started to climb up the ropes only to be tackled to the deck by a flaming bird. Marco then flew back up and resumed his strutting. Ace half suspected he'd crow if a phoenix could crow.

"This is clearly some crazy zoan thing." Thatch declared from his indent on the deck.

"I'll go get Pop's then." Namur decided. The fishman wasn't exactly certain but it looked like Marco was celebrating something.

100\. Writer's Choice : Magic

Marco and Fleur's first child was born in the early morning on April 6th like a normal human child despite various childish expectations of the two of them incubating a clutch of eggs. The little girl also properly nursed like a newborn and was not fed like a hatchling which was more disturbing to consider as some pirates had entertained that notion. The girl had Fleur's silvery blond hair and Marco's eyes and was promptly named Dove.

Pop's interaction with his newborn grandchild was more than a little hilarious to watch as the large man claimed the little girl was impudent like her mother for claiming his birthday as her birthday too, even if it was adorable enough to have half of the crew wrapped around the newborn's finger in an instant. The other half of the crew were knew better than to spoil her, having had siblings or those they considered such.

The fact that Fleur even had a child at her claimed age made people very suspicious about it until someone thought that while Fleur was not a phoenix it was possible that like Marco her devil fruit caused her ageing to slow. It's not like they knew that many other mythical zoans to compare to and Fleur wasn't saying anything about it.

It was later that they realized that the kid had inherited the parent's powers when the little girl of three years turned into a dove and burst into blue flames flecked with gold much like her father's own.

Marco was not the only one wondering how that happened as his wife laughed with joy.

"Magic, Marco. Magic." Fleur explained as she kissed him.

Marco figured that was as good of an explanation as he was going to get.

* * *

A/N: 100 word prompts are hard, but easy at the same time. This plot bunny was gnawing on my mind.

Explanation time for why certain things work like this that weren't explained in story:

8\. I don't buy into the whole Veela-mating bond and if they don't they die or other veela bond crap-it's stupid and demeaning and usually used as a plot-device to get Malfoy and Harry to have mpreg inducing sex. Having an emotional bond enhanced by magic to know the general state of the other person -plausible. As for how Fleur ended up in another world... magic. Magic makes things very odd at times since looking at certain incidents like Voldemort's resurrection being something he researched how to do because becoming body-less occasionally happens enough for there to be _**methods **_to chose from.

10\. Fleur is on that island for precisely three years, eight months and nine days. Solitude takes it toll on the human mind -thankfully Fleur is part Veela.

21\. Fleur isn't stupid and if there's one thing that survival makes people do is gain critical thinking skills, time management and pragmatism. Surviving a war does that too.

22\. Why the commanders and Jinbei didn't sense Fleur -they're not really concentrating/looking and on an island that hasn't seen humans in ages animals haven't learned to fear humans. Not to mention that Fleur is more curious and assessing than actually intending to do something which is where most people that use observation haki notice things.

25 &amp; 26\. Fleur is part Veela and far more in-tune with her Veela side than ever before, nor is she consciously reigning in the allure either.

31\. Fleur is a vain woman and tried her best to stay clean but looking fabulous isn't a priority when nobody is there to look pretty for. In short she was pretty after her ordeal and getting cleaned up notched that into gorgeous and later stunning.

36\. Tanning skins stink, especially depending what they're tanned with.

45\. Men still do stupid stuff around Fleur due to the allure. Due to OP being all about will-power and most of the pirates being out of puberty they're not reduced to complete fools. To be specific about Fleur's age here -she was at least 17 during the tri-wizard and was married by twenty and it is widely assumed that she had her first kid before she was twenty two. (JKR never gave Fleur a birthday.) So assuming she had all three of her kids within five years means she was around 28 after her son was born. So add in the seventeen years until her youngest graduates makes her at least 45 before the accident. Fleur at this point in this fanfiction is 49 due to OP's time ambiguity aka the day she left and the day she arrived was not the same day. Being magical she ages slower and being pretty makes her seem even younger.

50\. Ace is unlikely to be the only kid Whitebeard has ever adopted that tried to kill him. He is however been noted as the most stubborn about it.

60\. Most of the Whitebeard Pirates are of the opinion that Fleur's ability to communicate has suffered from her isolation on the island. Alcohol and the allure are a potent combination.

74\. Kizaru's laser beams are bad enough and something Dr. Vegapunk has studied enough to weaponize into the Pacifista. At least Kizaru's attacks are made of the visible spectrum of light. As for how Fleur knows this -it was mentioned at a full family dinner from Hermione or she might have stumbled across the information elsewhere. Hermione is most likely. There's only so much quidditch, work and home stories that can be told before a limit is reached. Plus Hermione's the one that would bring up the electromagnetic scale over dinner if someone brings up the right topics.

78\. Would a cannon Veela/Fleur be able to realistically do this? Likely not, but we know from Nami's weather stick that OP's weather can easily be changed by three shells that absorb heat, chill and electricity because those three dials are what power the clima-tact after Skypeia. The flame dial is used to enhance weapons but also is used to cook food so energetically it doesn't make sense but it does work in the OP world. As for the heat blade -magic and will. Fleur is part magical creature so while the mechanics of magical power aren't explained in HP, the 'core theory' is easily understood. Now what makes magical creatures different is that all of them is magical so Fleur has the magic in all of her body and has been working it for years. Her will has been honed and sharpened by her experiences on that island so Fleur can make 'an awesome heat lance of doom' but she's highly unlikely to spam such attacks. Unlike a core that just needs to wait to be refilled so magic can be used again, Fleur using too much magic could kill her.

81\. I've read a few stories of Fleur having such a thing occur but most of the time it doesn't explain why since I'm pretty sure to actually use a spell to induce a miscarriage means they have to know she's expecting -so potions. Some are mentioned as addictive and even toxic in some cases so it isn't a stretch to say that they could potentially cause miscarriage.

83\. Marco's age isn't mentioned in the wiki but he's been with Pops for over two decades, was likely fully grown when he joined so he's at minimum in his forties and possibly in his fifties.

88\. Birds have lots of different mating rituals. Some build and decorate nests, others have mating dances and some are tests of suitability such as the twirling claw-grasping flight. Fleur is a veela and looking at Bulgaria -the country that had veela as mascots for their quidditch team and is likely home to most of the species- it seems likely that Veela are more predatory than a phoenix. While nothing in the HP wiki mentions phoenix mating habits and it is possible that such things would not carry over to the OP world but yeah, Marco enjoys dancing more than he thought he would.

93\. Due to OP being a Japanese creation everyone speaks Japanese. English also gets some use -often in signs and such which showed it was there and people know it or some of it. Then we have someone like Robin and Sanji who have named attacks in a different language. Then there's the Amigo pirates and other hints of not Japanese cultures so that leads to the conclusion that different languages exist and are not commonly used. This could likely be attributed to the World Government's institution favoring Japanese in the first place.

95\. Ace and Thatch have a wonderful friendship but now Ace is better with his flames, so he's able to get to the fruit faster and he then passed it on. That guy then had the choice of what to do with it according to the rules that govern the Whitebeard Pirates.

97\. Fleur's bounty name is revealed. In Japanese folklore Karura are huge fire-breathing birds that hate/eat dragons/serpents. Go wiki them and while you're there wiki Veela and Vila. It is the collective belief that Fleur is out of Marco's league being too classy for a life-long pirate. Like it is the collective belief that Fleur can't be as old as she says she is. Most people think their relationship is due to them both being birds.

98\. There are few magical fire spells that are known in HP. There's incendio, the fire-whip, the bluebell flames (they only burn things directly above them) and there's fiendfyre. Sure a variety of ways to use each but for a cursed fire that doesn't have such a high likelihood to kill the user -I went with baelfire. It is still a cursed fire (bael = evil) but it is not capable of turning on the user or consuming everything like fiendfyre. As for fiendfyre killing Blackbeard -his logia powers would not help there and Ace might have made them a little too strong due to his brother complex. Hence why Ace had trouble putting them out too. Fiendfyre first ate at his haki-armor to protect himself and then when Teach realized he was getting hurt he lost concentration and was consumed.

100\. Fleur is magical and while working with her magic in OP it has strengthen it, so she is going to be living longer now than she was before -provided she doesn't die before then, which is possible. Unlike Marco or Dove, she can't regenerate. Well...

101\. Yes, there are going to be more chapters.


	2. Chapter 2

A/N; The bunny is not gnawing on my mind anymore but is still there and threatening. The previous ones were on a time-line and these insert into it quite well... some of them do. The timing is a bit ambiguous on them but the first chapter covered about seven years easy.

Beta'd by the graceful Umei no Mai who without this would have far worse grammar.

Summary: 'When working for Gingotts lands you in a different world, a Veela has got to do what she has to do to survive. Still it is surprising to thrive after meeting the Whitebeard Pirates, or maybe not. Birds of a feather flock together after all.'

Warning: Harry Potter epilogue compliant.

Birds of a Feather

* * *

1\. Duty

Marco "The Phoenix" was a man much compelled by duty. He was the dutiful son, the ever responsible commander and the much beloved older brother for most of the fleet. So it wasn't surprising that he'd tag along with several of the men going to get fresh water.

Why were they doing such a thing when the Moby Dick had a wonderful purification system for dredging up the salt water and turning it into water fit to drink and bathe with? The key word was 'had.'

Playful roughhousing had gone too far in the wrong place and so as punishment these fools had to distill large barrels worth of freshwater quickly if they wanted a chance of escaping further punishment from the chefs. This wouldn't save them from the more hygienic of their shipmates unless the system was fixed before the day was over. Marco suspected that some of the smarter ones would be bribing the mechanics to work faster, because he knew some of the more vengeance-minded ship-mates had already gotten all the names down or were in the process.

2\. Despair

Thatch didn't know why Jinbei had joined their trek and exploration of this island. It was one of those rare ones on the Grand Line that had next to nothing for a magnetic field and was almost impossible to find as a result. It was also well out of the usual routes and too close to the Calm Belt for comfort. Thatch was going because for the most part it was some of his division members who either were party to the roughhousing or didn't stop it so he was held partly responsible. Another part was that he sort of half-remembered this island from the last time he was here with Pops; over a decade ago to be precise.

Thatch despaired of actually finding a water source that would fill all the barrels and feared the doom the cooks would unleash as a result of not being able to do dishes or other things in the kitchen. The nurses were also less than pleased, which was arguably worse as they could change out of the sexy uniform!

3\. Lost

Marco knew that the men they had with them owed more than people would think to Jinbei's guidance to fresh water. Thatch's memory was not the most reliable of the commanders. That honor was his and Haruta came a surprisingly close second which she could be a total brat about. Still, he might slip the names of those who had wrecked the system to a few disgruntled people if they didn't already have them. The system was a touch delicate due to its age so they did have all the parts at hand to fix it but people weren't going to be happy that it had broken in the first place.

4\. Grave

The spring fed pond complete with a creek that took the overflow away, was suspiciously empty of wild-life and likely for good reason. The huge and recent blood puddle indicated that something large had died here recently. Lack of further blood and drag marks on the ground said something else. Scanning up high with his eyes, his haki alerted him to a curious presence above them. Tensing in preparation for whatever predator this was alerted the rest of pirates to be on guard.

5\. Hollow

The joy that Marco typically found in a good fight was not found today. Thatch was beyond distracted by the woman who was attacking them with sheer predatory instinct and ruthlessness as if she were feral. Breaking the spear didn't slow her down and it took Marco abusing his regenerative capabilities to capture her, as her flames clearly took more stamina than she had to spare since there was no telling how long she had been on the island and what the stay had done to her health.

6\. Regret

Marco had seen feral children so he knew by the time their fight was over that whoever this woman was, she was a wreck survivor. Marco knew that not all people from shipwrecks were the same after being rescued. Some didn't survive the wreck in the first place, some didn't survive the island and some didn't survive the solitude. Her presence had the same raw feel to it, partially numb tinged with burning regret.

Marco steeled himself to end her should it prove necessary.

7\. Worry

That worry never had a chance to be. The imperiousness in her behavior, and the question-like demand gave him a new worry.

How sane was this woman?

8\. Wishes

That wish and desire to know were soon granted.

As were Marco's more unconscious wishes, but those happened in the fullness of time.

9\. Waste

Seeing the rescued woman in the early morning light showed that while she had tried and succeeded at staying clean while surviving being clean from soap instead of sand and having access to those needed feminine products, scissors and such truly allowed for her to emerge as a much more refined and comfortable lady. Her borrowed clothing was comfortable if not exactly what she would likely have chosen to wear from choice.

Seeing the transformation of island savage to civilized lady -there was no doubt about the lady because most women never could obtain such a presence that said it so clearly- would make her choice to jump over the rail a larger waste if he didn't catch her.

10\. Wonder

The amount of wonder the moment held when she unfurled her own wings was something Marco could never articulate afterwards, let alone describe.

He had tried to say something about it, but as soon as he said something the words fell flat and shriveled in his throat, and Pops put his hand on him to reassure his son that he understood what Marco tried and failed to say.

11\. Breathing

For any bird zoan, flying was like breathing and distinctly not something humans were equipped to deal with. So they learned to rely on the newly found instincts to tell them how to move, how to find air currents and even navigate. This woman clearly had a great deal of experience to easily navigate the tepid air and tight spaces without a thought.

Flying ocean winds and thermals was easy, flying in a forest was difficult made more so by the lack of light and the absurdly tight turns. Her fondness for her hybrid form was thus easily explained by the sheer mobility it offered in the jungle.

12\. Bane

With a bit of work flying in such conditions would come naturally but that doesn't mean that Marco enjoyed flying in a jungle with the barest minimum of light to see by. He was a phoenix and not an owl. He might create his own light but that didn't mean it was worth much in this thick jungle.

13\. Belief

There was a lot of evidence that Fleur -not the oddest name ever heard- had been on the island for far too long. The extensive array of tools, weaponry, changes of leather clothing, the clay dishes and tools, the furniture and the extensive time hollowing out the tree must have taken all pointed to it.

Still the sophistication of some things suggested that she had a lot of human intelligence, practice and had gone through more a melding than succumbing to a zoan's awakened form. He just had to believe that more of the sophisticated lady existed than the predatory bird.

14\. Soul

Most zoans didn't speak of it but after eating whatever devil fruit it was like they gained a second soul. One that had a form, body and instincts but not much of a mind. It's not like most animals thought much into human concepts. Mostly this helped when learning to transform from their human form to their animal form or somewhere in-between as the coordination from two legs to four or learning a new way to walk would be impossible or would involve a lot of pain and effort to learn to move in a form alien to one they were born in without the in-built 'cheat' that zoan fruits came with.

For the most part the zoan fruits were among the easiest to use because of this but they were also the hardest to master. Mastering that other soul, all those instincts meant that Marco was one of the few that could transform whatever part of himself he wanted into a different form from eyelashes to toenails. This also meant that zoans could go in the opposite direction and lose their humanity to those instincts yet keep a modicum of intelligence. These poor souls were known as 'awakened' zoans and often were used as security guards once dominance was established over them. Following orders after that was only natural, and they could even be conditioned further which was saddening.

Fleur clearly was in her base form, yet displayed traits more in line with an awakened zoan such as single-mindedness, a lack of communication skills and practically screaming feral to anyone competent with observation haki. Part of that might have been her nature and not being a morning person but that couldn't be everything about it. She also had enough control to selectively turn parts of her into her animal form which would make 'awakening' impossible. Having that amount of control should make regressing that far impossible.

It seemed that Fleur's time here had a significant impact on her soul, or something did at least.

15\. Fortune

It was a stroke of fortune or fate that it was Marco who fought and brought his newest daughter on board. Thatch had told Pops of what happened to the water Jinbe used, and the minor steam burns his sons got in return. The explosiveness of fight and how easily he was distracted until Marco had taken over. Hearing of her abilities and having seen her himself, Whitebeard signaled for one of the spare good guest cabins to be prepared while she had cleaned herself the day previous.

Having seen her insolence first hand he knew he couldn't force her to join, but he didn't want her as his daughter only for his own selfish purposes. It would be good for her too and Edward Newgate knew he was a sucker for strays.

Having sensed her and Marco meeting on the rail in his sleep, Whitebeard smiled. He grinned in his sleep as he felt his son's joy.

16\. Safe

Once she was settled it was deemed 'safe' to approach, but it should be noticed that these were pirates so 'safe' was subjective. Well after Pops had gotten a bit of her story out by asking if she had anybody.

In short halting and very formal words she conveyed that her husband was dead, and their children were lost to her somehow that she wouldn't elaborate on. Judging by the social class she was likely from they had thought they were probably fostered until she dashed that by saying they were too old for that. This caused some outrage as they couldn't be that old, so the conversation circled until it made sense or as much sense as someone over forty looking in her twenties after having three kids and however many years that island tacked on.

Even the stressful time spent on the island didn't leave any stress marks or wrinkles on her face, which was something the nurses did gossip over, along with the strange health examination results.

17\. Ghost

To Marco and those experienced enough to read the signs soon realized exactly what had caused her 'regression' to an almost feral mindset no matter how civilized she looked from having a proper wash, trim and actual clothing on her.

It was grief. Any intelligent animal could feel it and react to it much like a human would. Some cry relentlessly, others are angry, some don't feel anything as their life falls apart and others withdraw into themselves. Fleur was obviously the last sort as it seemed that only ghosts of the ashes of what had likely been a fiery personality seemed left.

18\. History

They didn't know her history, her abilities and while curious the pirates weren't curious enough to invade her fiercely guarded privacy. Instead they like all good pirates were good at focusing on the now, as to them that was what's most important. It's not like they had much of a future anyway.

Few pirates wanted to become pirates so they didn't think about the past. Few pirates wanted to think about their future, as very few pirates retired.

Instead, they focused from day to day matters wringing as much joy and memories as they could.

19\. Power

Those that were good enough to tell could see that she had held great power previously and it was waiting to be rekindled. At the moment it was flickering with her will now that her will wasn't completely geared towards surviving or grieving.

20\. Bother

At first Fleur's presence was very distracting, even with the traces of her grief and island ordeal present however faint. She could have secluded herself in her quarters to prevent various pirates from outbreaks of drooling or other embarrassing behaviors but it was better that they be used to dealing with it than get caught by surprise.

The sad thing is that she was controlling the allure while on ship. Thankfully the pirates did enjoy the opportunity to do a little harmless violence to each other and it was wonderful teasing material too. Those that got too close were burned enough to make her point.

21\. Torn

After those first few days where he had seen Fleur up everyday looking at the fading night sky as false dawn lit up the ship Marco was torn on what to do. He hadn't missed Pops' acquiring gaze nor did he miss the amount of work it would take to have Fleur restored to a civilized state, although on a pirate the definition of 'civilized' was up for debate and the standards considerably lower than most of the world. For now he'd settle for a conversation that didn't involve going in circles, pantomime and headaches. Fleur's manner of speaking was practically archaic and she had forgotten words, which made it all the worse.

So catching her attention after a quick discussion to determine if she wanted company or not, and then later about her watching the stars, he started pointing out and explaining the stars, the stories behind them and their use. He was pretty sure she was lost on more than half of it but she paid attention. Pops might have been the reason he started conversing with her but he continued their lessons for his own reasons soon after.

22\. Comfort

These early morning lessons were a comfort to Fleur even if she despised being up this early. She had learned to deal with it on that island.

Marco was being what she needed most -a friend- for all that she was having trouble remembering Japanese. A few months of study and immersion didn't equal total fluency and since she worked for Gringotts, most of it was far more formal and business oriented than what the slang-using pirate lingo used for conversation.

At least she could read the language, which did put her ahead of a number of pirates who didn't know how to. Books were the carriers of civilization and a source of factual information, despite the bias some of them held. She did have a bit of confusion about some of the topics mentioned but that eventually cleared up with further thought and experience.

23\. Soft

Eventually they ran out of constellations and navigational means to discuss as by the time these lessons had ended Fleur had proved a quick study and determined to return to as normal as possible. She certainly wasn't as soft in the head as some people suggested when she had previously butchered the most common language on ship. That they did so within her earshot was just worse. Some pirates were just that thoughtless.

Neither was Fleur's response soft to the rude pirates. With some of the most eloquent and sophisticated insults Marco had heard and half-understood, she verbally cut them to bloody chunks in a language that was popular enough the world over that even the most ignorant people knew bits and pieces, while the better educated knew more. Fleur finished the pair off by crashing their heads together and tossing them overboard in a clear seething rage.

Listening to Fleur's continued mutters, where maybe one word in ten was understandable in total it was enough to get the idea that Fleur was very much out of practice with the world's main language as she had only needed her native one -the one that was speaking fast and low enough to be unintelligible to all in earshot- and the one her husband had spoken most often -the one she had refused to speak in prior to this day.

It was in soft words and slightly disjointed words that she explained the reasons behind that, three days later.

Some days it was very hard to remember that Fleur was a grieving widow and that people grieved in different ways.

24\. Hard

Teaching Fleur about combat was something that was hard for Marco.

Not because he had an unwilling, lazy and untalented pupil but because she had little martial training prior to her isolation and all of her subsequent skills had been perfected and practiced on animals. It was made worse by how sharp being half-feral for years had left her instincts. Animals could be smart but it was humans that could be intelligent enough to feint and fake things in such ways that those instincts could be used against her. Her footwork was good, very good in a way that implied she could dance all the dances Vista knew and possibly more. Her reflexes were good too, but having so little experience could be a good thing. She did not have years of bad habits to unlearn.

Add in some impressive strength and the instinctive weapons of fire, talon and on a few occasions beak, getting her to have control enough to not kill whoever was sparring with her was going to be an uphill battle. If he couldn't regenerate then he would have lost several body parts many times over and been dead a few times.

25\. Pain

Teaching her was made harder as while she had an impressive pain tolerance she was also adept at causing it. She also fought dirty, which from a piratical standpoint he approved of but as a teacher he had to caution her about as relying on it to maintain an advantage was not always possible. Superior skill wouldn't fall to such tricks easily and situations wouldn't always allow for such tricks.

That was a painful lesson for the both of them, but it wasn't like they didn't heal from it.

26\. Sensual

The worst part about teaching Fleur combat was how incredibly sensual she could make absolutely everything. He'd like to think it was accidental or coincidence or by design except that it was her natural behavior, done without the idea of drawing attention to herself but he was _very_ aware of what she did in ways that his imagination hoarded only to share in dreaming fantasies later. Wherever she was from had few qualms about personal space and invading it in concern, in pleasantries or in anger which only added another dimension of awareness. So Marco got used to it but he never did stop noticing that how she moved and breathed was practically made for seduction.

He just learned how to ignore that for however long he needed to, and to take cold showers after. The alluring widow did not need that sort of attention from him.

27\. Weakness

Unlike him, while she had an otherworldly control over fire there were a few fire-types that she claimed she had never mastered because it wouldn't be possible to do. One was dragon fire as there was a lack of dragons to study, to learn from, and to eat. That last comment was a strange one that Marco filed away anyway because weren't dragons suppose to be extinct? The second type was the phoenix's flames of resurrection as they were the flames that continued burning and rebuilt the body after death and while her fire required her conscious control.

Fleur didn't have the intangibility of a logia either, not that she needed it really. Her glaring defense deficit was covered quite nicely by her capability for offensive over-kill and astounding mobility. Her preference for partial transformation gave her the ability to do unparalleled aerial acrobatics by shifting a wing here, tossing it out or hooking a leg out to alter her trajectory mid-air.

Unlike the Division Commander, her skeleton was adapted to be more like a bird's which meant that she could actually fly in her hybrid form instead of glide or jump like he could. The doctors weren't sure if that was because she was stupidly skilled at it, if that skeleton structure was natural which made her not entirely human or if it was the result of a family having the same Devil Fruit for generations. It made her ridiculously light and surprisingly quick in a fight which was fine, once she learned how to use it in combat against people.

28\. Strength

Since she didn't have an intangible body, it made sense to have a little martial training and focus on ranged combat where things could be dodged. That really was Fleur's strength along with versatility with fire, but as a pirate she wouldn't be able to always rely on her ability to burn enemies to death or dodge them. Some of the things she could do with fire were not possible with conventional fire, much like the odd properties of his resurrection flames. Some were able to make him downright envious but there wasn't much he could do about that other than acknowledge that he was very jealous and get over it.

Some of those fires were clearly created for purposes other than heat and cooking, as evidenced by the fact she could heal simple things. There were darker shadows in her eyes when he asked if that was all she could do with fire and he had later witnessed a few while she practiced and refined her control over them. A few were she had mentioned as worth having nightmares over, or as nearly suicidal.

At least in spars she refrained from using the worst of them because she'd rather not kill herself as they were that dangerous or didn't have the time to focus to make them. Her normal blue fire was deadly enough when he triggered the instincts to summon it in a fight.

29\. Breeze

The easiest lessons he taught Fleur were those concerning haki. There she proved prodigious and breezed through them in a single lesson. At least the concept, she still needed some practice after that to refine her usage under pressure and in combat.

"The act of not doubting?" She clarified with a fey expression at his explanation.

Knowing that expression meant either trouble or him having to repeat it, Marco nodded again. She made a fist with her small hand and Marco knew what that meant without his haki screaming a warning.

He quickly made a guard and felt a jarring impact in his bones. Marco felt confused as even his fellow commanders had trouble making him feel their hits.

"Did you already know this?" He asked as he rubbed his arms.

"Haki is new to me. Magic is not. Haki lacks creativity." She criticized.

As childish as a belief in magic might sound, Marco knew that her comment was accurate. Haki was all about fighting -finding it, avoiding it, enduring it, preventing it and winning it.

30\. Float

"So what is magic?" Marco asked as he felt bruises rise to the surface of his arm.

"An ability that few people have. It's the ability to command the world. To tell fire to defy the natural order and burn while smothered. To tell fire not to eat but to restore. To make curses and blessings fall like rain. To command something to be something else. To make it stay as such. To command things to fix themselves. To order dishes to wash themselves. To make feathers and turtles float in defiance of gravity. The uses are as infinite as the mind can comprehend and force upon the world."

To Marco this sounded a lot like the conquering haki that some people possessed but used on the world in a specific way... "There's a catch to this isn't there?"

"Aside from being fiendishly difficult? It's simple. Push on the world, the world pushes back."

Marco decided there and then that those capable of magic all had to be somewhat crazy, considering how much world there was compared to the size of a person... wait, that didn't sound right, he was missing something surely...

31\. Speed

Marco caught on with admirable speed but there were some things he wanted to clarify. "The effect you have on men..."

"No. That's hereditary. My little sister, my mother, our cousins, even my uncle although his effects women more than men." Fleur explained. "To change the world or the rules of it for a short time, what do you think the world does? It remembers and pushes back. It changes the person. Why do I look less than half my age? That is why too."

"So the fire is magic too?" Marco asked suspicious.

"The fire comes with the transformation but I dislike the color orange so I change it." Fleur explained.

Marco quickly caught his tongue before he mentioned her vanity. Such a minor change for such a silly reason suited her.

32\. Freedom

Marco was a pirate and he enjoyed his freedom. Marco could do many things most pirates couldn't thanks to his devil fruit abilities.

He had always dreamed of flying and the sea when younger and enjoyed learning the ins and outs of navigation and maps.

But the only thing that ruled the phoenix more harshly than love was loyalty. If that was the price for freedom, home and love then he was more than willing to pay it and more.

33\. Jealousy

In some ways, Marco had to admit that Fleur had a superior devil fruit in terms of offense. Compared to the beak he had when phoenix-shaped it only made sense that such an attack-oriented mythical zoan had such a predatory form.

The fact that with magic, she could bend the limits of the devil fruit allowed her a number of other abilities, which is probably where most of the jealousy stemmed from.

He had asked her about teaching him how she healed things, but she had informed him that Pops condition couldn't be treated or cured from such flames. She also told him that she was not going to give him the knowledge of basics and have him over-reach himself and potential kill whoever he was trying to cure. Then she had looked at him with too knowing and sad but resolute eyes that she wasn't going give him a reason to hate himself and his powerlessness against the workings of time and death later.

That more than anything ended whatever envy he held towards her.

34\. Devotion

No one could fault Fleur's devotion to improving herself, practice in the morning and the studying or working later in the day. Still it was such an ungodly hour... and Marco was even crazier in some ways.

Those that typically took watch close enough could hear any solid blow connecting should it be physical. They could also see the pale blue fires of Fleur do what would be career ending damage to Marco if he couldn't regenerate, as the phoenix had never hidden that being capable of regenerating did not make his injuries any less painful.

They had just never thought that Marco was a masochist. Marco wasn't; he was just dedicated.

35\. Sweat

Veela were magical creatures capable of creating fire so it was natural that they were not effected by heat to the degree others were. Making one glisten with perspiration took inducing an emotional reaction or inhuman levels of heat -somewhere above the amount needed to melt steel and glass. In effect this meant sticking them inside a blast furnace could make them perspire since lava was actually several hundred degrees cooler. There were Veela that bathed in lava as it if was a spa's mud bath.

Fleur was a fourth-Veela by the way such things were measured commonly but Veela knew better than to make such an assumption. Her mother was half-veela. There was no way around that. Her sister inherited more human blood from their mother and as a result was more human than her older sister. As for Fleur, she took after her grandmother quiet strongly and it was obvious from the moment she was born, hence her middle name of Isabella. Fleur's mother had a slightly stronger allure than her eldest and Fleur had never heard of her mother transforming but she was likely capable of it.

Marco simply found it vexing that he couldn't judge how much further to push things by the sweat stains or other signs of exhaustion like gasping for breath.

A bird's lungs were more efficient at breathing than most other creatures. It's why birds had no issues with altitudes that could kill other creatures. This did carry over for the avian Veela, no matter how human they looked or actually were.

36\. Tears

One morning had Fleur showing up with red rimmed eyes and a scrubbed pink face. Marco silently offered comfort and was refused. It was this that showed that while Fleur still had her problems, it also showed her pride and inner strength.

Marco might be a pirate, but he knew better than to try and muscle in the area claimed by her dead husband.

37\. Blood

There were times that Fleur hated being female. Those times came regularly for one of Veela-heritage. Fleur found it annoying beyond even the color orange for those few times a year. Veela weren't human even if they were humanoid. Worse yet, they were magical humanoids which had its perks and drawbacks.

For a Veela to have a child both parents have to want one. Accidental pregnancy did not occur with Veela, as it was part of their magic. It was Fleur's human blood that caused her to have her cycle even if its purpose was greatly hindered by magic. This was a perk as many young witches had permanently damaged their fertility with potions to control or stop their mensus. Worse was that such things could accumulate over the years could carry over to the child.

The drawback was what was known as 'bonding.' It had its uses, such as determining the want of a child to allow pregnancy a chance to occur, the status of their significant others, mothers for keeping track of their children they had born naturally, and to a lesser degree the status of their children's lovers. The 'bond' was made through an emotional connection and sex which meant rape was perfectly capable of forging one.

It went without saying that both of these factors had had a significant impact on Veela racial customs and sexual values that only got more complicated when the typical temper all Veela had was added in and the tendency of Veela to be kidnapped for sexual purposes. Succeeding in keeping Veela as pleasure-slaves without their consent for long was highly unlikely. Veela did very poorly as slaves anyway, especially when there was plenty of bonds to other Veela as that allowed them to track others quite easily and raze any who dared to attack the flock to ashes.

Still, Fleur was glad that she was raised as she was even if some Veela-cousins had called her prudish when she didn't sleep with them despite being related and concerned about her safety since she was in a human society. All that the sexual contact was for was to create an awareness bond and fun; not for children because the Veela were a unique species in that they didn't mind mild incest so long as no children resulted from such couplings, as this allowed them to track down captured members of their flock easier and know when they were alive and how they were doing in a general sense. Veela that did have incestuous children anyway were usually killed, along with their children.

Being raised in a more human way allowed her to have a different perspective on things and knowledge of various human customs; such as how to properly wash bloody underthings which was a bit more important at times.

38\. Confusion

More than a fair few amount of people were perplexed by Fleur staying on. A lady of quality like that wasn't really pirate material, they thought. Her actions of mostly helping in various support roles on board only made that more obvious.

Or so they thought before they were all beaten black and blue by said lady. Marco did not regret betting on Fleur winning.

39\. Fear

He did regret that she found out. She was not amused. Neither was Marco later.

She had the Weasley twins as brothers-in-law once upon a time. Their style of revenge was more appropriate than hers in such circumstances. Fleur might have been raised like a human but she was a Veela at heart with all the predatory instincts that it involved.

She didn't want to do such a thing to a friend, so she settled for something generally harmless, more humiliating and far less bloody.

40\. Innocence

Looking back at Ace's first lessons, it was the dichotomy of innocence and cynicism that made Fleur continue teaching Ace beyond the basics. He also really reminded her of Hugo with his denial of the existence of his actual father, although Ace lacked Hugo's focused genius. He also looked like a darker version of her own son, although Louis wore his hair longer and wasn't a walking disaster of often misdirected rage.

Fleur really did not want to be the one that would break that fragile hope and the shreds of it that the fire logia had.

She'd happily incinerate the person responsible and like a true harpy, befoul the ashes.

41\. Happiness

Most people attributed her recent happiness to her and Marco finally getting together. Fleur didn't mind that misconception either.

Veela knew what had happened to those that had touched them intimately and with great emotion felt on both sides. It is how she knew that her Bill had died. Her children had all been born naturally so she smiled as she felt the new link from her oldest daughter. The joy of being a grandmother was dampened the knowledge of likely never seeing her grandchild but it was muted to a higher level of happy.

42\. Gift

Marco's constant presence was a gift. Fleur was certain that most people most people felt comforted by Marco's presence.

It wasn't hard to figure out why. The fire that he was sometimes made of was always singing in his soul. Phoenixes were very good at comforting people.

That most people weren't aware of it perplexed her, despite being drawn to the blond commander anyway.

43\. Smile

Fleur's smile dazzled people when she let it. It was Marco that had a superlative mouth that could do the same and convey so much more.

Arguing who had the best smile was silly but they enjoyed it anyway.

44\. Sky

Fleur often flew in the sky for hours on end. Marco often did the same. It was a habit neither wanted to break despite all the infrequent but regular teasing about such things.

Most people had no idea about the urge that those capable of flight felt about not doing so. Pirates weren't that good about not indulging in the first place and Fleur had always been something of a hedonist.

Flying was a sort of bliss that couldn't be explained.

45\. Clouds

Clouds looked different from below them compared to when a person was level with or above them. The type of cloud often said more about the weather than most would care to know.

Then again, it was idiots like those that were killed by 'sudden storms.' The New World's weather was not that unpredictable as much as subtly devastating and tricky to read accurately.

46\. Sun

The sun was constant in its rising and setting even if it hid behind clouds or mountains. It was also very annoying when either of them had been out long enough that by the time they headed back for the Moby Dick the sun was glaring at them.

Marco agreed then that orange was worth hating but most of the time it was just obnoxious. He did find her irrational dislike of Ace's fiercely orange hat to be entertaining. This turned the conversation on their flight back into which was more obnoxious, Ace or his hat?

Marco was not going to tell Ace that he lost a contest to his hat as Ace was one of the few polite pirates, despite his lack of table manners; table manners don't count as they're one of the first things pirates lose in general. Fleur's argument was that Ace could at least apologize for being offensive, the hat wouldn't or couldn't.

47\. Gravity

To most of the long-time Whitebeard Pirates it was obvious that like gravity, those two feathery-zoans would find their way to each other.

Blenhiem accepted the winnings of the pot with a surprised grace, while Haruta sulked. She had missed winning the pot by two days!

49\. Waves

Marco seemed a bit different these days. That was somewhat expected. What wasn't was that Marco was acting like the ocean waves these days. Fleur seemed to be the moon that was pulling on the tides.

Then there were the days that the roles reversed and the whole allusion just didn't work anymore.

50\. Eclipse

It was hard to surprise Marco most days. Finding that Fleur wanted to go dancing -proper dancing and not the drunken jigs that Marco was more familiar with- and couldn't due to his inability made Marco want to dive off the ship, whether in embarrassment at the deficiency or horror at the prospect he wasn't quite sure. Marco knew that it wasn't a human response which left it as a phoenix one he hadn't encountered before. That was enlightening in a fashion.

Fleur quickly changed her mind and decided she'd teach him. So Marco learned to dance to Fleur's humming the bare-bones of the song and her steady heartbeat. Thankfully these lessons tended to be off-ship as they often ended with them trying to quell passions untamed which gave a ready and truthful excuse for them to be off-ship. Marco didn't know if it was a previously unfound but pre-existing phoenix quirk he didn't want to quell or something due to his phoenix-nature combined with Fleur's own distinctly bird-like nature but he did know that Fleur was not afraid to use it against him. She managed it fairly frequently.

It seemed for the both of them that an appropriate dance or a few reels would eclipse any aphrodisiac. They could both see cutting out early on large parties to have private ones of their own as a major feature of future gatherings.

51\. Wings

Having wings was something that most people could only dream of. Dreams of flying often included soaring for hours. Such dreams did not hint upon the need to keep wings steady for the entire time or other muscles to be held just so for hours on end. Nor did they include nasty weather and the effects it had upon air currents.

Flying in hybrid form as Fleur was prone to was worse as Marco knew from experience, not that he could actually fly like that but sustained glides were possible. There was a human impulse to fidget that the avian form would still. So the day the weather turned bad on them too quickly to avoid, Marco was able to see her full transformation.

As a rule most zoans were on the large end of the scale when it comes to what they turned into. As a rule most predatory female birds were larger than male ones anyway. The result meant that she dwarfed him easily. With some manipulation of what he knew as heat they caught thermals that didn't exist moments ago to get above the clouds.

52\. Cold

Marco faithfully attended every lesson Fleur taught Ace that he could. Those lessons gave him greater insight into Fleur's character and knowledge that he didn't have previously. Marco knew just about everything about being a pirate but there were some areas that his more formal education was lacking. Fleur was lacking in more worldly knowledge but her formal education was better than his once she recovered from what had happened to her; when not working or helping out, Fleur was reading and not just the trash novels a number of the crew were fans of.

The basics of the lessons had Ace working on several things: expanding his knowledge and understanding of fire, adding or subtracting a characteristic, lots of practice exercises and the applications of such things.

The practice exercises could be weird and more than a little dangerous since often they involved fire and not just the components of it. This one he could tell was going to be a little weird. Fleur returned with three mugs of juice. To further up the dramatics she set the three mugs down so they could all see that they were the same. A wave of her hand later, two were frozen slush.

Ace's objective to copy what Fleur had done had the freckled pirate gaping. Marco could understand. When it came to lessons on fire, no one expected an exercise to make things cold. How had she done that?

This question puzzled him for a bit, as he drank the refreshingly cold drink.

53\. Warm

Most lessons had more warmth involved, usually in the form of fire. Seeing the two of them playfully toss balls of fire at the other was not an unusual sight for all that it set more than a fair few pirates on edge should they be around to witness it. Fleur's mastery of fire, like her mastery of her avian transformation was not to be denied for all that she rarely showed those skills off.

Still for all that the sporadic lessons usually involved heat, it was the applications of light that had him shivering despite the warm air. Marco was glad that Kizaru either never tried to do some of these things or had failed to such an extent that he decided it was impossible. After all, the trick to believing something is possible is seeing even if it is against everything commonly known.

54\. Temptation

Ace's lessons were not the most regular of occurrences. Ace's narcolepsy and minor insomnia made regular scheduling practically impossible. However even after his promotion to division commander these sporadic lessons continued.

The ones held on ship were usually basic exercises and information. Small-time stuff. These were small things usually and not dangerous, or as dangerous as they could be.

The ones held off ship were usually the variants that were dangerous, damning or just out of this world. These lessons required just about everything he had learned previously to be put into play. How to make it, how to shape it, how to alter it... and how to put it out. Some of the fire variants he learned were very resistant to it. Some made him feel sick to use, and others were a joy that sang to the world in bright flashes and warmth.

It was only the promises made about the terms of use that prevented him testing them all out on the enemy of the day. That and he knew that some of them weren't for combat purposes. Baelfire was clearly meant for torture.

There were flames for everything that could be thought of -from healing, to killing, to torture, to finding your path, to lure others away, to explode and then there were the applications of each lesson and the creativity that could be applied to the world to have other effects!

Needless to say, Ace's greatest temptation was not the mystical allure Fleur had but that of the ever expanding possibilities fire granted him. No matter what some of his ship brothers that knew about the lessons said.

55\. Sex

The Moby Dick was a large ship so it was theoretically possible to have a sex life undisturbed by wandering ship-brothers and ship-sisters. It just wasn't always possible but some tried it anyway.

This option was often fraught with peril of beyond that of ruining the mood.

Fleur for instance did not expect to get abducted by a number of women on board -both pirates and nurses- to get interrogated for all the juicy details. She had not been deaf to the rumors of Marco's playboy ways -by the nurse's standards as Veela standards were obviously not the ones they were judging by and pirate standards were all over the place- but she had thought that most not-Veela were too prudish to casually mention they wouldn't mind an invite into anything they were up to.

She had apparently underestimated pirates.

56\. Memory

They both had memories and things they didn't want to think about. This didn't stop them from comforting the other, nor did they demand the other to talk about it.

Marco didn't quite know what was making Fleur so disturbed to create such violence as to casually destroy a marine blockade, but he did realize it was important. If nothing else the tears soaking his chest in their room afterwards told him that.

57\. Dream

A lot of Whitebeard's younger children had this idea to make Pops into King of the Pirates. Marco and several more could tell that his real dream was to have his family all be happy.

When Marco was a child, he dreamed of adventure and glory on the sea. As an adult, he sought refuge from the world that sought to use his abilities or despised the choices he had made and was forced to make in order to survive. Now that he was older and most certainly in love with Fleur he found his dreams shifting to the rest of their lives together.

Yeah, he had it bad.

58\. Promise

Fleur's lips, sighs and skin all tasted of promise. Her lips said desire, her sighs proclaimed her loyalty and her skin... her skin told of the lengths she'd go to, what she'd been through and what had been endured.

Marco adored Fleur's skin. It had paled from the dark island tan to a faded bronze against silver-blond hair lightened further by the sun. It was a wonderful contrast to her blue eyes. There were some scars here and there -a few small burns that were unnoticeable to the eyes, small marks from various minor scrapes and a few larger marks where adapting to the island had its own public story to it. If he looked carefully in bright sunlight, he could see where stretch marks from Fleur's children had been.

Marco enjoyed kissing her and worshiping her flesh. Thankfully she wasn't too adverse to it.

59\. Candle

One of the benefits to having Fleur in his life was that in those small hours when sleep eluded them both, they could spend it talking. Often the conversation was inconsequential but other times they turned quite serious.

Sometimes they'd talk about their childhood, where comparison proved that each was so alien to the other that bar the accident of fate that led to them meeting each other they would have never met. Their adult life was also discussed, along with what they've done, haven't done and the challenges they've faced.

Marco ended up getting more magical theory lessons but had to admit that despite the cost some of the things she talked about were impressive and disturbing by turns, especially when she started in on the customs of the natives on her magically altered home island. That was the place a number of magical species had retreated to which did include actual dragons and phoenixes for all that they were rare and mostly unstudied.

Marco was fascinated for all that he knew the place was 'unplottable' and well warded which translated into she couldn't give directions to it if she tried. Magic and its creatures had retreated from the wider world for various reasons ages ago, which did leave them mostly ignorant of the modern world.

In turn, he explained about the social customs on various islands he had been to, and tidbits on the crew and world over the decades that she hadn't stumbled over and figured out herself. He then expanded out to the various fields of study that he had devoted himself to and the long process of discovering and mastering his Devil Fruit without an actual model to study.

It was during the hours marked by the candle's steady burning that they grew beyond comfort and physical intimacy.

60\. Talent

"You have to admire the lengths those photographers go to." Thatch teased as he waved a bounty poster.

"Fleur the Karura? What's a Karura?" Ace asked as he looked at the price on Fleur's head. Not bad. It was bound to go up from just shy of a hundred million.

"Giant eagle. Breathes fire. Eats snakes." Izo snapped as he flipped towards the next page of the newspaper.

"Wasn't there something about dragons and Karura too?" Vista added in. "I think I heard about that from a Wano Samurai..."

"No seriously, that guy's a talented photographer!" Thatch insisted.

"We know." Deadpanned the other commanders. "We've seen."

It was something of an open secret that a number of pirates modeled for their photos at least once. Ace had, Vista had and so did a number of other infamous pirates. Having a candid shot that good was rare.

61\. Blaze

The pair of lovebirds had much different reactions.

"Only ninety-eight million?" Marco questioned as he looked it over. "Not bad for a starter bounty. At least the photo isn't bad."

"It could be better." Fleur remarked.

"Oh." Marco replied as he looked at it seriously. In the background, the setting sun blazed brightly orange. "I see, yoi."

"I don't! It's a marvelous shot!" Thatch replied.

"It's the orange in the background." Ace informed Thatch, more amused at her dislike to his favorite color this time. She wasn't just trying to kill his hat! He knew she was still trying to destroy it and pass it off as an accident! He had even had to buy a black version of it to protect his orange one, although the orange one was still his favorite hat.

62\. Frost

Living with Fleur had taught Marco a few things. One was despite the hour she woke at, Fleur was not a morning person. Two was that she was very convincing in keeping him in bed when there was frost decorating the deck of the Moby Dick and even more insistent when there was snow on deck. Three was the joy of shared showers after sparring in the morning, no matter what form said sparring was in as they tumbled for dominance.

Marco attributed his losses in the bedroom to superior flexibility, creativity and Fleur taking any and all advantages she could. It wasn't a bad thing to win either though.

63\. Strength

Living free required physical strength and mental strength on top of spiritual strength. No one could be that strong all the time so pirates found nakama. Those who would cover for them, fill in their gaps, have other strengths... nakama were important for freedom.

That said, no nakama was perfect either and Marco was reminded of this distressingly often as Fleur attracted lots of male attention. Sometimes his ship brothers were idiots who hadn't noticed that Fleur wasn't interested in them or thought that since she was 'putting out' for Marco that they could also see if she was amenable to their own attentions. Both schools of thought were for idiots who had to be corrected with violence. Still it wasn't an ideal situation to have those idiots bunched into the infirmary as they might get ideas and Pops' policy for traitors also covered mutineers... but killing his ship brothers over a woman was just an idea that flew in the face of everything Pops believed in.

Still how to get the idea in the morons' heads that Fleur was her own person and had chosen him to be more intimate with. It wasn't like they were married or otherwise pledged to each other... still he'd find a way to stop this before more severe punishments for stupidity would be needed. The amount of burn cream they had on ship was getting low too...

64\. Will

The idea of marriage didn't leave and nagged him constantly.

It was an idea, a wild hope and a desperate unspoken plea all rolled into one. The question was did he have the will to ask?

65\. Ring

As a pirate he had a few options when it came to getting a ring. He could buy one... or he could steal one. There was a last option that wasn't all that viable either as that would mean getting a gem and having a ring made... all of these came with one issue. What was Fleur's ring size and how to find out without giving away the surprise?

This would require detailed information, knowledge and sneakiness. Thankfully the commanders he confided in were willing to help.

It worked out surprisingly well, and Izo was only a little smug about it.

66\. Sacred

Marriage was something Marco thought never would happen if just because the idea of two pirates marrying was profane enough that marines would probably drop in as soon as the idea was voiced. Especially an iconic and lifelong pirate like him.

Now, during the midst of the congratulations and lots of ideas, he was wishing the marines would so they could go back to something a bit more normal with far less people. He hadn't realized he had so many friends... but overseeing those that were normally mature when visiting squabble with others they hadn't met in person before made him realize that Pops was right to call those brats his children too. They certainly were acting like it.

Wasn't this supposed to be a more serious occasion with the typical pirate chaos to be had later?

67\. Formal

The ceremony itself was the most formal aspect of the wedding and also the shortest. There were all sorts of various traditions from all parts of the world they could have chosen from, but really with all fuss various people put into the party after that which included gifts to the happy couple and the crew they were on, it would be just cruel to have a long ceremony, and very foolish.

Pirates weren't good at formality anyway, for all that the lady pirates and even Whitey Bay enjoyed dressing up for the occasion.

68\. Fever

Joy and fervent merrymaking spread across the assorted pirates witnessing one of the long time faces of piracy wed a relative newcomer. The bounty was rather new, but Whitebeard's allies were also his children and more than a fair few on his allies and their territories had been distracted by Fleur when the main fleet visited before she had a price on her head.

Fleur's lack of bounty prior to that had been for lack of notoriety, not for lack of ability.

69\. Laugh

There were more laughs than expected at those that saw the couple together and had trouble processing what they were seeing. The couple were wonderful foils to each other.

Marco was the casual, often unshaven pirate while Fleur was the formal, sophisticated classy lady.

70\. Forever

Flying with his wife, or dancing with her was something Marco could do for the rest of his life.

71\. Lies

They didn't make it a habit to lie to each other but if certain things were... edited about their pasts, it was understood that it was for a reason.

So long as they were truthful about the here and now, what they felt toward each other then those edits wouldn't be scrutinized even if the mystery was tantalizing.

72\. Overwhelmed

It never failed. He'd take a few days off and see a lot of work waiting for him when he arrived back. As much as the build-up threatened to run him ragged the next few days, he see it as enjoyable with his new wife helping with some of it.

She had been helping him with it soon after they first became a couple, but there was something tantalizing about doing something so mundane with someone so special that he had married her.

73\. Wait

Having married late in the year, meant by the time that Pop's birthday came around that some people were impatient with wanting to see a bulge in Fleur's stomach denoting the presence of a child.

As for Marco, he just would wait a bit to get appropriate revenge. Just long enough for them to be out of it from the celebrations of Pop's birthday. His wife would be happy to help.

74\. Believe

No one was quite willing to believe Fleur's age unless they had listened to stories about her children or family and Fleur wasn't one to share those frivolously. Not only for her sake but those of her many in-laws that were part of the government of her home island. The youngest brother-in-law was in charge of the military police and then there were the rest of her husband's brothers to consider and her sister's husband. Her own father had worked politically on her birth island, as did her mother. Her little sister had taken over their parents political work years ago, despite her quirks.

As for her own children, her oldest daughter was a mother and doctor, her middle child worked with Fleur's sister -not only politically but as security when not busy with commissions for her hobby of glassworks and had probably achieved her political ambitions by now- and her youngest was always busy with something if he wasn't traveling. Marco wasn't sure what the patriarch of the family Fleur married into did, but he could guess based on the scraps of knowledge he had.

In short, her family was not the kind that you invite to pirate weddings.

Still, that didn't stop them from sending a late gift, which Marco identified as from Fleur's younger daughter because of the nature of the gift -a surprisingly tasteful stain glass figurine with his phoenix form that glowed with a flickering inner flame- with a few letters written in Fleur's native language the he was curious about. Fleur was just more concerned with how the gift had made its way to them and having physical proof that her family was fine.

75\. Appreciate

There were times that Marco was grateful for his wife's ability to read him so easily.

"Did that children comment rattle you so badly?"

"Just that I never really thought of them, yoi. I likely have a few here and there. I wasn't exactly considerate or careful as a young man." Marco admitted. If he had kids then he hadn't met them and some of them were likely even full-grown. He could even be a grandfather for all he knew.

"Wild, were you?"

"A bit crazy too, yoi." He smiled in remembrance at some of the fun times and experiments, plus some of the ones where both his and his partners inexperience showed. His first attempt at a threesome was a disaster with all of them being so clumsy and not sure about positions but a fun weekend long experiment back in Paradise.

"Do you want them?"

"I... aren't you too old, yoi?" Marco knew that past a certain age, women didn't get pregnant.

"Magic." She breathed out. Marco decided that he'd need to get the entire answer about what all magic did to its user later. Obviously she was leaving off quiet a bit.

"But, the marines, bad idea, yoi." He mentioned as his mind swirled with the actions committed in the wake of Roger's execution. South Blue had been a hot bed for revolutionaries and pirates since those fearful genocidal massacres occurred based on mere suspicion and rumor. It had always been less than content with the rule of the World Government but the culling of a generation effected everyone to some degree so discontent grumblings easily turned into action.

"There are things that can be done with magic that can't be fathomed until seen. I've just been working on fire with Ace and you've got the theory for the basics but there is so much more to work with. You still want to raise your own child, no?"

Marco struggled to speak as desire and practicality warred in him.

"Yes." He responded, shocked at the emotions reeling in him from that admission. He hadn't even known that about himself or considered it; he had helped raised a few of the younger strays on board from the position of an older brother but being a father? That was something different.

"Then leave the rest to me."

76\. Bedhead

Bedhead might be an attractive look on her to him, but Fleur didn't like it. She got so embarrassed about it. Perhaps is wouldn't be so bad if it was shorter but she had been growing it out after the initial haircut she had given herself post-island, except for the occasional trims for split-ends. So a little more than four years meant her hair was reaching between her waist and her hips.

In the meantime however, he just kissed her for being adorably grumpy in the morning. If it led to more, well, he was fine with that too.

77\. Debauched

The debauched look suited Fleur well. Marco enjoyed every bit of the process in making her look such and then helping her clean up after it. Marco had learned how Fleur liked her hair to be brushed and how she dithered over which outfit for the day, some of which were chosen for their ability to conceal love marks.

Fleur couldn't do much about the rightfully smug look her husband had afterwards when she chose to show them off anyway.

78\. Feral

Fleur had done so well at becoming civilized again that anyone who hadn't known her during those first six months when she was having language issues would doubt that she had been nearly feral once upon a time. She had been picked up a little over a year before Pops dragged the rebellious pirate that eventually became the second division commander on board.

Marco having spent so much time with her knew exactly when she was restraining herself from acting out. He wasn't having much more success with himself.

A crewmate -a _brother_\- had been murdered.

79\. Sinister

So when that young man in second division was purposely murdered for that Devil Fruit, Marco kept a firm hand on her shoulder to remind Fleur not to explode in a temper that would endanger the ship and all those on it. Fleur's temper ran hot and explosive. Her fire burned things.

His flames did not.

80\. Sanity

Therefore it was very ironic that Fleur kept her wits about her when it was discovered who the nakama-killer was. It was crazy and absurd to those on board that Teach who had been a steady, friendly pillar of the second division for _decades_ had done such a thing.

Marco later realized exactly how off-balance all of them were when Fleur who was clearly angered was able to think clearly about things when her student was the one that was going to be hunting down the traitor.

81\. Stillness

It was on a day where the weather was still and clear that Akagami visited. That stillness was broken with Fleur's joke that Marco only appreciated because it wrong-footed the silly Yonko that he remembered as a cabin boy more than it had him.

Waiting in that stillness for Ace to call back was nerve-wracking. He had no idea how Fleur could do it so, so serenely like that. Ace was her student after all, so she had more reason to be worried about him.

Then again, she had had three children and was probably more familiar with this type of situation.

82\. Hunter

Due to Fleur being so prone to purely defensive actions with the exception of the occasional bad day, it was easy for people to forget that Fleur was a predator. More than that she was most definitely a hunter, the kind that pirates weren't.

She knew patience, waiting for that perfect moment to strike and the benefits of planning and preparation. After all, she had only swiped that curious device from the infirmary for confirmation of what she suspected.

She'd spring the news on Marco later, after her student had returned victorious.

She wanted Ace to be there too. Godparents should be there for their godchild after all. Ace and Marco might think that their lessons were sporadic but she had long since spotted a pattern in them.

83\. Generous

Due to the majority of pirates not having any experience except for those cautionary tales of crazy pregnant women to fall back on, their behavior was very generous for her current state. For pirates, they were practically spoiling her.

Fleur tried not to abuse their hospitality too much. Sometimes however a mood swing would occur and that was dangerous beyond the tears due to her own abilities and Marco's overprotectiveness. So the pirates learned to humor her for their own safety. None were tempted to act out too much due to previous occurrences, such as what happened when the news broke out beyond the commanders and the discreet medical staff.

Marco was thankful she at least knew what she was doing. He was a nervous wreck. Probably an overprotective one as well, but he really couldn't help it.

84\. Hair

Thatch was a bit wary. As if getting duped and then tied up by Ace wasn't enough, Fleur was playing with his hair! She had taken it out of his beloved pompadour and straightened it!

He was certain he could get out of the rope used but his attempts at getting out were thwarted because Fleur had threatened to cry -if not in those words- which was a scarier prospect to face than it should have been because of Marco. Fleur was scary enough for all that she didn't seek out fights. Fleur was not a young pirate trying to make the world take notice of her existence. _That_ was her student.

Fleur didn't have the stamina to overpower her student but her technical skill far exceeded Ace's even after a few years of lessons in what he could do with it. Case in point was the marine-sympathizer hiding in their ranks that was noticed after Marco's protective instincts became too much to be suppressed and thus keep the news contained. Marco was in favor of a harsher than usual punishment, but Fleur was for total destruction while keeping him whole since he still had his uses. The question of how was that possible was answered by her actions.

A comment of not having to do such a thing in decades and Fleur not suppressing her allure later -most people weren't aware that she even did such a thing in the first place and afterwards were very thankful that she did, including a few lady pirates- and a touch and smile later he was spilling all he knew. The flame that hit him after that made it so he couldn't even remember his own name. An absolute bullshit story later -along with informing the man of his name plus a curious addition of a surname which clearly was not a complimentary name- had the destroyed man pledging absolute obedience to Fleur, which she took with a quickly disguised look of distaste before handing that authority over another person, to Pops to be specific.

Fleur had clearly gotten scarier and had lost those reservations she typically had about starting violence or the more morally questionable flames in defense of her unborn.

So as much as it was undignified to remain tied to a chair as she debated about leaving his hair straight which made him look like a guy trying to be a pretty boy or putting his hair in ringlets, Thatch remained and hoped someone sympathetic would spring him. As embarrassing as that would be, it would be better than getting tossed overboard while tied very thoroughly to a chair. That made swimming difficult especially when you couldn't get the leverage to flail properly.

Ace was no help, since he clearly wanted to be elsewhere no matter how much he was enjoying his fellow commander's misfortune.

85\. Temper

Fleur acknowledged her temper was not for the better when expecting. Mostly because of hormones and her own personal feelings due to the miscarriage of her first child.

Anything or anyone that threatened her child would be destroyed. So when the sympathizer that would have endangered everyone on board was found in the act of contacting his superior, he was quickly brought before Pops to face his judgement. Prior preparations for all sorts of things was handy, especially when you had to ward the main ship and two paddleships for keeping her pregnancy secret. Being the two who would be most effected if her condition was made known outside the ship, she and Marco had a right of input for it. Marco was all for killing him. Fleur was for utter destruction of the man without killing him, after names were wrung out of him. Fleur even offered to do so and did.

An invisible flame that was laced with heavy compulsions to believe that Fleur was to be trusted and to tell Fleur everything, a cheering charm and a heavy dash of concentrated not-suppressed allure later the sympathizer was happily spilling his list of contacts, who knew what -or didn't know to be more accurate since his report was interrupted- and all his little secrets from taking a piece of dessert off of someone's plate last week, to the fact that he wet the bed when little.

Then she destroyed him. A flame heavily laced with the forgetfulness charm. A little bit of rebuilding later, she had a Thrall under her command. Not needing a servant she had informed him that as she was part of Whitebeard's crew, he also had to listen to the commanders and their boss, the Captain of the ship.

Fleur was not happy to do such a thing but she didn't use the typical ways to force Thralldom, which were arguably more cruel, at least physically.

86\. Coffee

Thatch was sipping coffee irritably as he gained several more double-takes, watched people 'wake' others up creatively because they had to be dreaming and gained three more accusations of not being the fourth division commander from his own division. Did they just pay attention to his hair?

Fleur had eventually released him from captivity but that was after the ringlets that Ace had pictures of, along with other hairstyles, which did include pigtails and far too many ribbons in tight braids than he wanted to admit existed. Currently it was wavy, brushed back and tied into a low tail with a piece of ribbon. He looked like a pretty boy. An _old_ pretty boy. Fleur said he was suave; whatever the hell that meant since he didn't know the language 'suave' was from. He assumed it was a compliment.

Fleur would normally not have acted on such a whim so hormones must be making her insane. Ace on the other hand, had no excuse for his complicity except for escaping the wrath of his teacher and like the little bastard he was, he had escaped off ship with camera and damning evidence in tow.

The only benefit Thatch could see was that the nurses liked his change in style enough to comment and smile. He could enjoy looking 'suave.'

87\. Flying

One of the hardest things to adjust to while expecting was the lack of flying. She could fly a little bit around the ship but she couldn't go out soaring for the entire day. It had become known that Whitebeard had acquired another mystical zoan specifically another avian- even if they didn't know exactly what she looked like when fully transformed.

So large flying birds that had previously been able to pass unchallenged by marines, invading rookies and the greedier Yonko now were harassed by whatever powers or means they possessed.

Fleur blamed her pregnancy for wanting to fully transform and sit next to Pops for scale in a photo. Men did not know how much hormones regulated their emotions, thoughts and cravings... some fried shrimp dipped in a garlic and orange sauce sounded nice with some pickles too... and she had lost her train of thought. Lizard sounded wonderful too, maybe crocodile.

Veela craving were generally worse about the food; she blamed it on the innate raptorial instincts most Veela had. Snakes were tasty even when not pregnant.

88\. New

Marco was an old hand at adjusting to the curves life in the New World threw at him, along with getting others to adjust to being on the Moby Dick and to being part of Pop's extensive adoptive family. It was practically automatic for him.

Being married to Fleur was easy enough to adjust to, after having known Fleur as a friend for years and having already moved into her quarters. They had already been living with each other for the better part of year when Ace had gotten promoted to commander. He had toyed with the idea for proposing for a few months before getting the ring and then the next two months after that he and Fleur watched as masses of pirates organized their wedding. The reception afterwards anyway probably needed them more, but they at least had an excuse and a means to leave. That Whitey Bay caught the flowers made for a melee.

Impending fatherhood however was new, as were the unexpected instincts that were roused due to Fleur's condition. It left him feeling like a rookie pirate. He was constantly worried about things he'd normally write off, her safety while he was fighting, if she was stressed, eating properly, the condition of their child, the amount of time she spent sleeping, the mood swings, the morning sickness and the amount some pirates smoked below decks. He had even worried about Fleur's libido -oceans below, that had been embarrassing when Fleur had dragged him over to the ship's doctors and nurses to get the fact that it was fine to have sex when he was reluctant about that.

Fleur just took most of his new behaviors and worries in stride and let him flutter and flit about.

89\. Old

Dealing with nervous new fathers was something that Fleur had practice with. Her first husband was much the same along with the rest of his brothers -except for Charlie who never married- and Harry who was remarkably zen about the whole process. Some of them were better the second or third time around depending on how many children they had but she had to soothe all of her sisters-in-law at least once over impending fatherhood stupidity, usually over a Veela drink recipe.

That the concoction also helped to reduce morning sickness was a bonus.

However the strange, overprotective behavior exhibited by practically every pirate on board was getting old fast. Did she have to kill someone to prove she could take care of herself? Being someone adept at range fighting she was perfectly capable of such. She was pregnant, which was not crippled even if she was finally swelling. Like her previous three children, her belly only began doing so noticeably during the last trimester.

90\. Blessings

Marco felt quite blessed to hold his daughter. Something he hadn't expected to ever occur to a lifelong pirate like himself. Looking at that little face he felt as if he had witnessed a miracle.

A little coaching on how to properly hold her, some warnings of what not to do which he'd adhere to strenuously and he was off to show Pops his granddaughter.

91\. Quirks

Raising a child on a pirate ship, there would likely be some quirks.

That among her first words were various curses should have been expected in retrospect. Marco however was not impressed. Fleur even less so.

92\. Jewel

Dove was a wonderful baby. She didn't fuss much, learned to sleep through the night quickly and thankfully didn't get sick beyond the expected childhood bouts that no one but parents remembered.

Compared to what he remembered others saying about newborns, Marco felt his daughter was a crown jewel that outshone them all.

93\. Stupidity

Once she was mobile and was capable of moving on her own, the stupidity of his brothers on ship became even more apparent. There was lots of dumb 'advice' given from all quarters early on and now there was even more. Including on how to make her stop with the not always understandable gibberish that was a child's mix of several languages. Finding out that Fleur spoke more than three languages was less surprising than it should have been. Marco thought about asking how many she knew but realized that he was happier not knowing the depths of his linguistic ignorance.

Izo proved to be a godsend for Marco when it came to a babysitting should he and Fleur want alone time. Looking at the cross-dresser, you wouldn't expect him to have had as many 'siblings' as he did. 'Siblings' as in 'people he was raised with and might actually be related to' instead of 'gigantic crew he was adopted into.' Sure, there were lots of his ship-sisters and even nurses interested in doing so, but Izo had experience and less prone to panic should the baby need changing.

94\. Blur

Marco didn't know how but suspected there was powerful magic at work when both he and little Dove became indistinct from the more dangerous elements of this particular island. Not that these idiots were a threat to him directly, but the knowledge of Dove's existence was a major secret on board the Moby Dick.

He also didn't know how Fleur had managed to keep such news contained on board -nearly one thousand, seven hundred were a lot of lips to keep silenced. He was just grateful that she had managed the feat. The magical theory of warding and enchanting was way over his head and whatever education in that field Ace was getting had yet to catch up to those lofty levels, so Marco let Fleur get on with it.

As even his bright shirt faded from sight he thought he could appreciate the perks of magic just a little more.

95\. Young

The Strongest Man in the World watched as Ace played with his teacher's daughter. This was a man much different from what he was previously.

The Yonko thought it was a sign of how young Ace really was when he had what amounted to a private temper tantrum inside his adopted father's cabin when the news of Marco's impending fatherhood broke out beyond the commanders, before Fleur had shown exactly how far she was willing to go to protect such secrecy which had rightly terrified anyone who watched the display. It was then that reality sank in for the second division commander and he began worrying far beyond what he should.

"Come, my son, and let me tell you why not to worry about your teacher..."

96\. Writer's Choice: Gentle

Like all fathers, Pops had found that gentleness did more to soothe his wild sons than any yelling to calm down would ever hope to do.

"First is that your mentor is of an age with Marco, which puts her a decade and some years younger than I. This is not some folly of youth but something planned. You can see the triumph in her bearing. That is the second point. The third is that she's very knowledgeable and intelligent, or else she would not be able to teach you or continue to surpass you in skill when if comes to fire. The fourth..." The pirate captain continued listing points as they came to him, allowing his voice to lull his commander to peace.

The larger man had been expecting this for a while so he had a while to prepare for such panic. Ace might be his adopted son, but Fleur had mentored him and fussed over her student even as she stood up to the rest of the crew for him back when Ace went after his traitorous son. Knowing what he did of Ace's history, he suspected that Ace would rightly be afraid of losing such a maternal figure and what would happen to the child if such a thing did happen.

Seeing the two play made an old man's heart light with joy.

97\. Writer's Choice: Learn

Like all children, Dove did learn things astonishingly quickly. Learned did not mean mastered, so the stumbles, scrapes and getting lost on ship were put up with.

This also meant Dove learned who she could convince to let her get away with things that her parents wouldn't allow. Being on a pirate ship, she did not lack for bad influences who taught her a number of assorted songs that were far from child-friendly who thought it would be funny. Those pirates quickly learned that such antics were not funny for the parents or for them when their part was made known. Dove shared Marco's gift in putting names to faces and remembering them all.

Worse still was when Dove decided to imitate her father and transform like he did.

Fleur was an experienced witch and mother so she knew wish magic when she saw it. It was going to take a lot of work to make such transformations purposeful and even more to get it right down to the reviving flames. In this part of the Grand Line, it would likely be needed when Dove was older.

98\. Writer's Choice: Sudden

Fleur having a bounty on her head did not mean she stopped her routine of shopping and haggling on various islands. It had won her the friendship and often times inside knowledge of several merchants. Her friendship with others on board and later her own marriage meant she was often shopping for more than just herself and her own small family. Even if it was just minor gifts for birthdays or something useful that they needed but had been forgetting about.

Good-naturedly haggling with a favored merchant for just a little bit lower, Fleur was interrupted by a male voice saying he'd buy it for the lovely lady. Fleur stiffened as she recognized it and then relaxed as she recognized it. A bit deeper, but really, mostly unchanged.

Addressing him as only a mother could in her native language, "Louis, walk with me and explain." Fleur then sealed the deal with the merchant by exchanging money for her goods.

Replying in the same language, "Only if you tell me how you became a pirate and what's been happening for real here. This is a crazy appealing place."

99\. Writer's Choice: Hurricane

Information was exchanged as goods were bought and the mother-and-son pair blew through the market like a typhoon. Fleur was happy to note that he was as frugal and thoughtful with his words as he was with his money as she remembered. Dominique was more blunt when she didn't care to be polite and Victoire chatted constantly about this and that.

Fleur was catching up on what was happening to her immediate family, including her granddaughter's name that Teddy had bestowed upon her. Teddy had inherited his grandmother's naming sense, which was somewhat unfortunate. The good thing was that this was discovered earlier so while her granddaughter was named in that fashion, it wasn't a horrible name as it could have been.

She also found out what happened to her Bill. Before all of that temple's wards were found and unraveled, that place had killed or 'disappeared' three full curse-breaking teams. Full teams were seven wizards and five goblins, which made that temple the deadliest and one of the most expensive curse-breaking undertakings in four decades. Before that curse-breaking expeditions weren't organized or regulated so it wasn't the deadliest temple ever, but it came close to it.

Then the conversation turned to how Louis had gotten here which was a tale by itself. There he had learned a bit about the culture and current events by using a bit of decidedly grey and more than a little illegal magic on the guy that had intended to sell him -something that made Fleur quirk her lips at due to her son's description of such. His tale also detailed him obtaining a devil fruit ability, returning home -something he wasn't going to elaborate on for a while because it was complicated, because he was an idiot- to reassure the clan. The Weasleys were too numerous for 'family' to work feasibly and had surpassed 'house' status for all they didn't use it since it came to them through the Prewett side of the family. Then he was back to find his mother who had managed to become a pirate on the other side of a much different world.

Fleur caught her only son up on what she had been up to, including her ordeal on the island where she had learned pyromancy and how to transform and what had happened after, her marriage and informing her son who had previously been her youngest that he had a new baby sister.

Louis blinked at that information and decided that asking would lead to embarrassment and teasing as his mother was well within her rights to remarry years after his father had died. He also knew how she felt about Marco and decided that it was none of his business beyond a casual measure of the man. This brought them to the most interesting part of the conversation for those that had been overly exposed to George's sense of humor, "So what do those pirates know about your past and magic then?"

His mother's grin was equally ecstatic and not just because her son had been her pack mule throughout the shopping trip. Depending on how this conversation went, he and Hugo might have to change a few things... and get Dom to go along with it.

100\. Writer's Choice: Shadow

Following his mother like a good little boy for all that he was well past his magical majority, he helped her with the packages as they boarded the Moby Dick with no one stopping them. Dropping off the packages at his mother's quarters, both of them retreated to the deck to continue their chat but this time about inconsequential things in a mix of French and Japanese.

It took about ten minutes for someone to notice something odd, although admittedly that coincided with the amount of time it took for Haruta to come up on deck.

"So, Fleur, any reason why Ace is blond and wearing a shirt?"

"This is Louis." She explained as Haruta looked a bit sheepish at her mistake. The resemblance was uncanny though, now that Fleur thought about it. Fleur had been raised Veela enough to judge not on appearance, because there was no such thing as an ugly Veela. As such physical appearances and similarities were not the forefront of any Veela's mind when comparing people.

"Louise?"

"Louis." The strawberry blond male replied, correcting the commander. "Call me Izzy though. Anyone that I'm not related to tends to mangle my given name."

"Just like your father in preferring not to use your proper name." Fleur commented, although her son at least had a reason for it; George's daughter Roxanne had managed that curse somehow when she was thirteen.

"At least I'm a nickname since there's not much that can be done with a name like Louis, mother."

"Mother?" Haruta asked as she looked at them both, confused.

"Yes, mother." Louis confirmed.

"Mother?" Haruta repeated.

"As in the woman that conceived, carried, gave birth and raised me to adulthood mother? Did you think I was her brother or something?" Louis asked jokingly and realized the joke fell flat as soon as it was uttered.

Haruta looked even more confused and more emotions played on her face openly until her mind disconnected and the petite commander fell forward in a slump. Louis caught her before her face met the deck.

"And to think, I didn't even have to employ the power of pretty." Louis commented in French, referring to the allure in a roundabout manner.

* * *

A/N; Chapter 2 finished with groundwork for Chapter 3.

Again, more explanations that don't quite fit in the prompts.

1\. Distilling fresh water -drinking water that isn't purified somehow is just stupidity. As is doing dishes or anything else with it. Who knows what's living in there? Add on that this is the Grand Line and all sorts of horrible things could happen.

2\. There are islands on the Grand Line that don't have a magnetic field. They're rare and not well-traveled to. Hence the 'haven't been here in ten years.'

11\. Birds and people breathe differently. It is why they can fly above Mt. Everest but people would die.

15\. The Moby Dick is a huge ship and space is always a premium on ships.

20\. Being men, they're still effected by the presence of a pretty woman with a supernatural allure. At least they're 'nice' when bringing others back to their sense.

37\. For those that have trouble reading between the lines Veela allow and even promote incestuous relations to a degree for bond-knowledge for safety's sake -so long as no kids are born through such things. Slightly inbred children (like through 1st cousins) have a high risk for mental impairment while those even closer are even worse. Add in the traditional temper and magic... Veela have good reason for the tradition of killing off those inbred or with mental issues such as psychopathic tendencies with extreme prejudice. Sound inhuman? Veela aren't human.

40\. Fleur was raised French magical, so she's more compassionate than the average Veela but even so, sometimes things bleed through. Plus, I totally see Hugo hating his father, as he strikes me as a more mellow Hermione with a strategic mind.

52\. Fleur removed the heat from the juice.

60\. If you haven't wiki'd this yet, you should.

63\. Pops does have a policy that deals with any sort of traitors. Ace's remark in Alabasta about nakama-killing be the worst sin? That implies there are other sins and punishments.

74\. All told the living Weasley's did well for themselves at the end of Deathly Hallows. Arthur and Percy do well in the ministry, Charlie is happy with his dragons, Bill is clearly successful and a happy family man, George succeeds in business and both Ron and Harry both become aurors. Fast-forward to that horrible epilogue and this is still mostly true, although Arthur may have retired.

85\. Being someone's 'thrall' usually equals 'slave.' However this is the magical world, so a thrall is someone that becomes a magical being's servant through supernatural means that isn't due to the imperious, nor is the bond open for abuse like the house elf bond. So that leaves open a lot of room for negotiation.

86\. There's a lot of blending in OP but characters aren't infallible and all-knowing. Thatch is understandably confused when he encounters words he doesn't know. As for the hair, that's inspired by Tatsuya Himekawa from the manga Beezlebub.

89\. Fleur has many sisters-in-law. All of who have at least two kids. Some have three. Fleur has lots of experience in dealing with all sides of those expecting. She does however have her limits. As for not showing until the third trimester -there are women who don't show at all. Generally, those with stronger abdominal muscles show less.

94\. Again, prior preparation shows, if not the how.

95 &amp; 96\. Considering how close Fleur and Ace are in this fic, if Ace didn't have this freak-out he'd be out of character.

100\. Pronunciation is important. There's a major difference between Louis and Louise. Louis is Low-es while Louise is Loo-ease. Izzy is a nickname.


End file.
